9418683 Stephenson This award will partially support the travel expenses, over a three year period, to enable Dr. Gerard J. Stephenson, of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico, to conduct collaborative research with Dr. Bruce H. J. McKellar, of the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne. The focus of the research will be on the application of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) effective theory to low energy nuclear properties and the study, mainly through low energy nuclear reactions, of the interactions of neutrinos at energies where their masses, should they exist, will be important. In this theoretical study of the physics of neutrinos and quarks in nuclei at low energies, two issues will be investigated. The first study concerns the behavior of quarks in the atomic nuclei and the question of whether they remain confined to individual protons and neutrons, or whether they transfer between them. The second study deals with neutrinos and the development of a model in which the effective mass of a particle depends on its surroundings, a model which could explain some features of the experiments which have attempted to measure the mass of this elusive particle. The collaborative work brings together the complementary expertise of the principal investigators. The visits by Dr. McKellar to New Mexico are supported by the Australian Department of Industry, Science and Technology (DIST) under the U.S.-Australia Cooperative Science Program.
