The proposed research and education projects will be carried out under the support of a CAREER award for a period of five years. The research component is aimed at the theoretical study of hadronic structure and dynamics at low and intermediate energies. In these domains of energy the fundamental theory of the strong interactions Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is in a non-perturbative regime making the use of effective theories necessary. Among the effective theories to be utilized are Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT), the 1/N expansion in QCD, and in some cases dispersion relations. The topics of research include: a) low and intermediate energy spin structure of the nucleon, in particular the study of the generalized Gerasimov-Drell- Hearn sum rule that will be tested experimentally at TJNAF; b) tests of chiral symmetry and applications of ChPT to mesons and baryons (K-meson decays, Goldberger-Treiman discrepancy, weak decays of baryons, decays of heavy mesons involving emission of low energy pions or K mesons, etc.); c) studies involving the expansion in the inverse of the number of colors in QCD (1/N expansion), in particular applications to (excited) baryons with the aim at understanding more clearly the pattern of masses, mixings and decay widths; d) further study possible improvements to the mentioned effective theory methods. The research component addresses topics of high current experimental significance at facilities such as TJNAF, and close contact and collaboration with experimentalists at TJNAF will be pursued. The education component is aimed at improving the teaching of graduate courses in Physics. In particular, the improvement of material presentation in the class through the use of computers. Computers will be used to present graphical demonstrations in class with the aim at enhancing the intuitive understanding of the subject discussed. Material for use in such demonstrations will be developed first in a Quantum Theory course and later in others, and efforts will be made to make such material widely available to other teachers. Students will be encouraged to actively participate in this initiative. The impact of this education component is expected to be very significant in the further development of the young Ph.D. program in Physics at Hampton University.
