Hadron Structure and Lattice QCD

Understanding the structure of hadrons is one of the great unsolved problems in physics, and as such is the subject of both theoretical and experimental effort at MIT. Robert Jaffe and his collaborators developed the MIT bag model of confinement, still one of the favorite models of quark dynamics, and applied it to the spectrum and structure of hadrons. Recently, he and Frank Wilczek have proposed a model for the newly discovered pentaquark baryons, suggesting that they are best thought of as two diquarks and one antiquark. Professor Jaffe is also one of the leaders in the quest to use new experiments -- including those done by Bernd Surrow here at MIT -- to elucidate the spin structure of the nucleon.

John Negele uses lattice field theory to solve QCD ab initio and thereby understand from first principles how QCD gives rise to the observed quark and gluon structure of protons, neutrons, and other hadrons. The combination of numerical computation and analytic techniques enables one to make fundamental progress in solving complex problems in QCD that are not amenable to either technique alone. Current lattice studies range from calculating the contributions of quarks and gluons to the spatial, momentum, and spin structure of nucleons measured by MIT experimentalists Stanley Kowalski, Richard Milner and Bernd Surrow to understanding the role of diquarks and instantons in hadron structure. Professor Negele is one of the founders of a national initiative to develop Terascale computers optimized for lattice QCD and is leading a collaboration to exploit them to understand hadron structure. As part of this initiative, a dedicated 5.7 Teraflops Blue Gene supercomputer at MIT provides essential resources for lattice research.

Theorists working in these areas include research scientists, postdocs and long term visitors Joy Khoriaty, Meifeng Lin, Harvey Meyer, Andrew Pochinsky, and Massimiliano Procura and graduate students Jonathan Bratt, Dmitry Sigaev, and Sergey Syritsyn.

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