This award funds the research activities of Professor Wayne W. Repko at Michigan State University.
These activities include the development of a more accurate theoretical description of a class of particles known as heavy quarkonia --- bound states of a heavy quark and its antiquark. Quarkonium systems of this type are formed in various excited energy levels, and gradually decay to the state of lowest energy in much the same way an excited hydrogen atom decays. However, the critical difference is that the decays of quarkonium, unlike the decays of hydrogen, necessarily include the effects of the strong nuclear force. Along with collaborators, Professor Repko has developed models that describe these heavy-quark systems, and as part of this research project he will now refine these models with the involvement of students. Another topic that Professor Repko will investigate is the nature of the mixing that describes how neutrinos with different masses are experimentally observed. This type of mixing is a purely quantum-mechanical phenomenon that has important implications for matter formation in the early universe.
This project will also have several broader impacts. It will involve both undergraduate physics majors and physics graduate students who will work on various aspects of the research descibed above. The undergraduates will engage with some of the computing aspects of this project and thereby obtain an introduction to theoretical physics research. The graduate student(s) will be more deeply involved and receive critical training that will aid in their professional development. There is also likely to be a crossover of research results into new classroom topics during the duration of this grant.
