Physics Colloquium - What Holds The (Visible) World Together? Probing The Strong Force In Electron-Proton Scattering At Current And Future Facilities

Protons and neutrons make up the visible mass around us. But how do properties like their spin and mass emerge from the dynamics of the strong force? This question is one of the last frontiers of the standard model of particle physics. In my seminar I will discuss our work of mapping out the quark-gluon dynamics in the proton using the large angle spectrometer CLAS12 at Jefferson Lab. The recently upgraded electron accelerator at Jefferson Lab enables us to access the 3D structure of the proton with unprecedented precision.

I will also discuss our contributions to the physics case and R&D of the future Electron-Ion Collider. This machine will start collecting data in the coming decade and will allow for the investigation of the structure of polarized protons and light ions as well as unpolarized heavier ions at unprecedented resolutions. This will enable us to investigate properties of sea quarks, which temporarily fluctuate out of the vacuum, and explore the saturation effects in the nucleon where the density of gluons is so high that they are thought to create a unique phase of matter, thus ushering in an exciting new era of nuclear physics.