CNS's Nuclear Physics Seminars at GW 

Unless otherwise stated, all seminars are Thursdays at 3:30 pm in room 106 of Corcoran Hall.

Upcoming Event
30th Nov 2006 (Thu), 3:30 pm in Corcoran 106

Diane Markov (North Carolina Central Univ. and TUNL)
Fundamental Neutron Physics at the Oak Ridge Spallation Neutron Source

Studies involving the neutron - neutron properties, neutron decay and neutron scattering - provide important tests for the Standard Model of electroweak interactions and for probing physics beyond the Standard Model. In the past decade, advances in technology for the production and transport of low-energy neutron beams, including polarized neutrons, have enabled the development of precision measurements testing fundamental symmetries and the weak interaction.  With a new neutron source coming online, the reduction of statistical and systematic limitations holds promise, thereby increasing the precision of measurements and the opportunities to probe new physics in the next generation of experiments.
The construction of the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was officially completed in May 2006.  A high-energy beam of protons hits a mercury target producing neutrons through the spallation process.  The neutrons are moderated and slowed to thermal energies and below.  When ramped to full power, the SNS
will provide the most intense pulsed neutron beams available for scientific research and industrial development.  One beam line at the SNS has been designated for fundamental  neutron physics research in which proposed experiments include precision measurements of neutron beta-decay parameters, studies of the quark-quark weak interaction and the search for a neutron electric dipole moment.
This seminar will include an introduction to the Fundamental Neutron Physics Beamline at the SNS, and to the scientific program proposed for the initial years of operation
.

Events This Semester
An incomplete and never-up-to-date list of spectacular events. 
Any similarities between the abstract and the talk itself are purely incidental and may be intended. 
Organisers: Dr. Allena Opper (experiment, 202-994-0723) and Dr. Harald W. Griesshammer (theory, 202-994-3849)

 Some seminars are coordinated with the joint seminars of the Experimental Nuclear Physics Group and the Theory Group for Quarks, Hadrons and Nuclei of the University of Maryland at College Park. Their ENT/TQHN Seminars (schedule) are Wednesdays at 4:00 pm in room 3301 of the Physics Building at UMd (directions).


Date Speaker
(link to SPIRES)
Title (abstract)
7th
Sept
2006
(Thu)
Winfried Leidemann
(Univ. Trento)
The LIT method: an Ab-Initio Approach for the Calculation of Reactions in Light Nuclei
The Lorentz integral transform (LIT) method is discussed for inclusive and exclusive electromagnetic reactions. The LIT approach allows the rigorous inclusion of final state interaction for a reaction into the A-body continuum state, however without using an A-body continuum wave function. In fact the LIT method reduces a scattering problem to a bound state like problem thus leading to an enormous simplification. Applications of the LIT will be discussed for the inclusive three-body electrodisintegration and exclusive electromagnetic reactions on 4He.
14th
Sept
2006
(Thu) *
Lisa Kaufman
(Univ. of Massachusetts)
Parity-violating Electron Scattering and Strangeness in the Nucleon: Results from HAPPEX-II
Parity violation in elastic electron scattering is sensitive to possible strange quark contributions to the vector structure of the nucleon, and this provides an opportunity to isolate effects of the qq-bar sea.  The HAPPEX collaboration in Hall A at Jefferson Lab has measured the parity-violating asymmetry in the scattering of longitudinally-polarized 3 GeV electrons from Hydrogen and Helium cryogenic targets at a scattering angle of 6 degrees and low Q^2.  The asymmetry for Hydrogen is sensitive to a linear combination of the strange quark contributions to the electric (G_E^s) and magnetic (G_M^s) form factors of the proton while the Helium asymmetry is senstive only to G_E^s.  The combination of the two measurements allows G_E^s and G_M^s to be separately determined. Final results will be presented.
21st
Sept
2006
(Thu)
no seminar
(Chiral Dynamics 2006, Duke)

28th
Sept
2006 (Thu)
no seminar
5th
Oct
2006
(Thu) *
Dean Lee
(North Carolina State Univ.)
Cold Dilute Neutrons -- A New Type of Superfluid?
I discuss the superfluid ground state and excitations of spin-1/2 fermions in the unitary limit.  The unitary limit describes an interesting bit of universal physics that occurs when the range of the attractive force between particles is negligible and the strength of the interaction is tuned to produce a zero-energy resonance.  I discuss relevance to dilute neutron matter, cold atomic Fermi gas experiments, and new theoretical results.
12th
Oct
2006
(Thu)
Giuseppina Orlandini
(Univ. Trento)
A recent ab initio method for bound state like problems in few-body systems
I will illustrate the main idea of the EIHH method, which couples the theory of effective interaction (EI) to the Hyperspherical Harmonics (HH) formalism. This method allows to obtain accurate bound state solutions of Schroedinger and Schroedinger-like equations. The method is quite general and can be applied to both boson and fermion systems. In the second part of the seminar I will present some applications of the method to nuclear systems with A=4,6,7. In particular I will discuss the results of the first complete four-body calculation of the photonuclear cross section of 4He, with realistic two- and three-body forces. These results have been obtained using the EIHH method within the Lorentz Integral Transform framework.
19th
Oct
2006
(Thu)
Edward L. Tomusiak
(Victoria Univ.)
Extracting Higher-q Results from Non-Relativistic Models
In the field of few body nuclear physics there exist various methods of performing accurate nuclear calculations within  the framework of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Relativity usually appears in the form of various relativistic corrections applied to components of the theory. These non-relativistic calculations must become increasingly inaccurate as momentum transfers increase. The question then arises as to the possibility of performing the calculations in such a manner as to extend their validity. One measure of the lack of covariance in non-relativistic calculations is frame-dependence of calculated quantities.  We show several methods, some intuitive, by which frame dependence  can be decreased in the  calculation of 3N electromagnetic response functions.  These techniques give agreement with data at higher momentum transfers than what would normally be expected.
26th
Oct
2006
(Thu)
no seminar
(DNP Fall Meeting, Nashville)

2nd
Nov
2006
(Thu) *
Raju Venugopalan
(Brookhaven Natl. Lab)
From Color Glass Condensate to Quark Gluon Plasma (via the Glasma) in RHIC's little Bang
The hottest and densest matter on earth, comparable to those that existed 0.000001 seconds after the Big Bang, is being studied at BNL's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). At RHIC, gluonic matter in the wavefunctions of the colliding Gold nuclei (the Color Glass Condensate) melts in the collision to form a state of matter called the Glasma, which subsequently thermalizes to form a Quark Gluon Plasma. We outline our theoretical understanding of this chronology of events and discuss some of the open questions that remain in our understanding of RHIC's little Bang.
9th
Nov
2006
(Thu)
no seminar
(APS  meeting
SE-section)

16th
Nov
2006
(Thu)
no seminar
(EFT workshop
Bad Honnef)

23rd
Nov
2006
(Thu)
no seminar
(Thanksgiving)

30th
Nov
2006
(Thu) *
Diane Markoff
(North Carolina Central Univ.
and )
Fundamental Neutron Physics at the Oak Ridge Spallation Neutron Source
Studies involving the neutron - neutron properties, neutron decay and neutron scattering - provide important tests for the Standard Model of electroweak interactions and for probing physics beyond the Standard Model. In the past decade, advances in technology for the production and transport of low-energy neutron beams, including polarized neutrons, have enabled the development of precision measurements testing fundamental symmetries and the weak interaction.  With a new neutron source coming online, the reduction of statistical and systematic limitations holds promise, thereby increasing the precision of measurements and the opportunities to probe new physics in the next generation of experiments. The construction of the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was officially completed in May 2006.  A high-energy beam of protons hits a mercury target producing neutrons through the spallation process.  The neutrons are moderated and slowed to thermal energies and below.  When ramped to full power, the SNS will provide the most intense pulsed neutron beams available for scientific research and industrial development.  One beam line at the SNS has been designated for fundamental neutron physics research in which proposed experiments include precision measurements of neutron beta-decay parameters, studies of the quark-quark weak interaction and the search for a neutron electric dipole moment. This seminar will include an introduction to the Fundamental Neutron Physics Beamline at the SNS, and to the scientific program proposed for the initial years of operation.
4th
Dec
2006
(Mon)
special!
2:00pm
Cor 104
Christoph Hanhart
(FZ Jülich)
How to identify hadronic molecules
Although studied for many years the nature of the light scalar mesons remains controversial. Here we shall present a method, applicable for s-wave states located close to a threshold, that allows one to quantify the molecular part of a given state. When applied to the $f_0(980)$ a dominance of the molecular component is found. In the second part we show that requirements of field theoretic consistency and chiral symmetry, when applied to the scattering of light pseudo--scalars, naturally lead to the appearance of dynamical poles in the scalar sector. A program is proposed on how to further investigate experimentally the mixing between these dynamical states and possible genuine quark states. Also some thoughts will be given on how to extend the concept to baryons.
An asterisk * indicates seminars coordinated with UMd, i.e. usually a seminar by the same speaker at UMd the day before; see their schedule.
A list of  events in past semesters.

Back to Center for Nuclear Studies Home Page, Department of Physics Home Page
Harald W. Griesshammer
, 5th October 2006