This three-year award for U.S.-France collaboration in subatomic physics involves Chaden Djalali, David Tedeschi, and graduate students at the University of South Carolina and Michel Guidal and his research group at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, University of Paris in Orsay. The U.S. and French teams will conduct experiments using the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility for investigations of electro and photoproduction of vector mesons. Experiments on the effect of nuclear density on relativistic heavy ion collisions and on vector meson electroproduction reaction on the nucleon are scheduled over the next three years. The teams will meet regularly to design the experiments, perform data analysis, and discuss theoretical issues.
The award represents the U.S. side of a joint proposal to the NSF and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). NSF will cover travel funds and living expenses for the U.S. investigators and graduate students and the CNRS will support the visits of the French researchers to the United States. The project combines experimental expertise of the U.S. researchers with the theoretical knowledge of the French team and will advance understanding of the role of vector mesons in nuclear reactions and into the structure of the nucleon and nuclei.
