Understanding Quarks and Gluons: Solving the Axial Scale Puzzle for Reliable Nuclear Matter Calculations

2023-06-07 08:36:43

Cartoon of a quark-gluon plasma (small red, green, and blue circles) produced during the relativistic collision of heavy ions between two heavy nuclei (white circles). The collision produces a heavy quark (red “Q”) and a heavy quark-antiquark pair (green “QO”). Image source: Bruno Scheihing-Hitschfeld and Xiaojun Yao

Scientists have taken a significant step forward in studying the properties of quarks and gluons, the particles that make up atomic nuclei, by solving a long-standing problem using a theoretical calculation method known as the “axial scale.”[{”attribute=””>MITand[{”attribute=””>MITandUniversity of Washington

Founded in 1861, the University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, with additional campuses in Tacoma and Bothell. Classified as an R1 Doctoral Research University classification under the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, UW is a member of the Association of American Universities.

” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute=””>UniversityofWashington[{“attribute=””>UniversityofWashington researchers found that the method had mistakenly suggested two properties of quark-gluon The building blocks of atomic nuclei are protons and neutronswhich are themselves made of even more fundamental particles: quarks and gluons. These particles interact via the “strong” force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. They make up the nuclei at the heart of every The exotic form of nuclear matter that physicists study in relativistic heavy ion collisions is called the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). This form of matter existed in the early universe. Physicists explore its properties in heavy ion collision experiments by recreating the extremely high temperatures last seen microseconds after the Technology and the University of Washington have now found this implication to be incorrect. The study also carefully analyzed the subtle conditions for when axial gauge can be employed and explained why the two properties are different. Finally, it showed that two distinct methods for measuring how gluons are distributed inside nuclei must yield different results. Gluons are the particles that carry the strong force, This prediction will be tested at the future Electron-Ion Collider.

Reference: “Gauge Invariance of Non-Abelian Field Strength Correlators: The Axial Gauge Puzzle” by Bruno Scheihing-Hitschfeld and Xiaojun Yao, 2 February 2023, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.052302

This work is supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics and by the Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, InQubator for Quantum Simulation (IQuS).