Dr. Kei Nagai (The University of Memphis)

Experimental Insights into Proton Structure

The proton, one of the basic building blocks of matter, still holds many mysteries. It is made of quarks, antiquarks, and gluons, which are bound together by the strong force. Although scientists have long studied how these particles share the proton's momentum, many details of their internal motion remain unknown. Traditional measurements have focused on one-dimensional quantities called parton distribution functions (PDFs), which describe how the proton's momentum is divided among its constituents. These measurements have revealed much about the proton, but they cannot show the full picture of its internal dynamics. Recent experiments are now also exploring multidimensional structure functions that capture how quarks and gluons move and interact inside the proton. This new approach is helping us gain a deeper understanding of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong force, and may eventually explain several open questions in nuclear physics. In this seminar, I will introduce the basic ideas behind nuclear and particle physics and explain how modern experiments are uncovering the structure of the proton.