A research program will be carried out at the Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) AGS facility and at Vassar College related to hypernuclear physics, specifically, experiments aimed at a search for rare, strangeness -2 dibaryons and for sigma hypernuclei in which sigma baryons are bound in nuclei. The dibaryon search is motivated by serious quark bag model predictions. The sigma hypernuclear search offers the possibility of new information regarding the force between sigma baryons and normal nuclear matter, and ultimately how the introduction of strange quarks into the nucleon modifies the strong force. Undergraduate students will be integrated into this research program. The research will be carried out in collaboration with a larger group including staff at BNL.
