UConn Physics Colloquium Series
Richard Jones
University of Connecticut
The quark model describes hadrons as bound states of quarks interacting through a potential in a non-relativistic picture. The Standard Model, on the other hand, indicates that both quarks and gluon fields are required to describe strong interactions and that a complete treatment is needed to describe physical states. Starting from these very different viewpoints, a unified picture emerges for heavy-quark systems. But when applied to systems of light quarks each runs into difficulties, one conceptual and the other calculational. One interesting model will be presented that attempts to span the gap between the QM and the SM, and at the same time provides a novel physical picture of mesons as quarks connected by strings. In addition to the ordinary quark model states, new states are predicted based upon exciting the normal modes of the string. Experimental results are now becoming available that give evidence for the existence of such states. A new program is being planned for Jefferson Lab to look for and map out the spectrum of these states.
4:00pm September 10, 1999
room P-38