Physics & Astronomy Colloquium

3:30 PM, Friday, April 18, 2008
Room 155, Chem-Phys Building

Dr. Werner Vogelsang
Physics Division
Brookhaven National Laboratory

"Exploring the Proton Spin''

The exploration of the inner structure of the nucleon is a classic topic of nuclear and particle physics. Over the last two decades a particular focus in this field has been on the spin of the proton and its relation to the angular momenta of the quark and gluon constituents. In inelastic scattering of leptons off polarized nucleons it was found that surprisingly little of the proton spin is carried by the quark and antiquark spins. This has triggered much theoretical progress, and led to new experiments dedicated to unraveling the proton spin structure, among them experiments in polarized proton-proton collisions at RHIC. The talk gives a synopsis of the historical development of the field, summarizes our present knowledge, and describes the current trends in theory and experiment.

Refreshments will be served in CP 179 at 3:15 PM