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==Project Overview==

==Project Overview==

The project that I am working on with Dr. Jones and his UConn lab group is the mechanical design of the Tagger microscope box. The Tagger microscope is a critical part of the GlueX particle accelerator experiment being constructed and run at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia. The GlueX project is overseen (and largely-funded) by the United States Department of Energy, but is executed by an international collaboration of physicists which includes students and faculty members from universities in the US, Canada, Chile, the United Kingdom, Greece, Armenia, and China.  

The project that I am working on with Dr. Jones and his UConn lab group is the mechanical design of the tagger microscope box. The tagger microscope is a critical part of the GlueX particle accelerator experiment being constructed and run at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia. The GlueX project is overseen (and largely-funded) by the United States Department of Energy, but is executed by an international collaboration of physicists which includes students and faculty members from universities in the US, Canada, Chile, the United Kingdom, Greece, Armenia, and China.  

Overall, the GlueX experiment is designed to understand the properties of confinement in quantum chromodynamics. The gluonic field which binds quarks together will be excited, and will produce a spectrum of exotic mesons. GlueX will map these exotic mesons by probing the protons scattered by the previously described processes. Ultimately, if GlueX is successful it will be the first time that such exotic mesons have been observed experimentally.

Overall, the GlueX experiment is designed to test the existence and effects of confinement in quantum chromodynamics. Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is a theory of the atomic strong force which also encompasses the interactions of the quarks and gluons that compose hadrons. Quarks, gluons, and hadrons are all subatomic particles, the largest of them being the hadrons, which include protons and neutrons. Gluons are also important because they are the "glue" that modern researchers believe holds the subatomic particles in place. Quarks (as well as leptons) bind to the hadrons in an atom, and because of this a quark often blends in with its hadron during spectroscopy experiments. Quarks exist in quantum states, such that they are assgned quantum numbers for J (spin), P (parity), and C (charge conjugation). The modern understanding of quarks comes from extensive research and theory on the subject of mesons, which are essentially hadrons with integer spins that make them easier to study. Because of this it was possible to find that mesons are bound to both quarks and antiquarks in different states. In a similar area of research, the idea of confinement was developed as a subtheory of QCD that is based on the idea that a quark is infinitely inseparable from its hadron, because the large amount of energy required for the separation would be impossible to generate. Experimental physics has suggested that confinement is a viable and probable theory, and GlueX seeks to furhter define and identify its existence and qualities. In the GlueX experiment, the gluonic field which binds quarks together will be excited, with the hopes of  producing a spectrum of exotic mesons, which have quantum numbers that are impossibly suited to mesons within the quark model previously described. GlueX will map these exotic mesons by probing their corresponding hadrons (protons). Ultimately, if GlueX is successful it will be the first time that such exotic mesons have been observed experimentally, and will greatly bolster the theory of confinement in QCD.

The final experiment will be contained in the newly-constructed Hall D at J-Lab sometime around 2014. However, the prototype tagger microscope that is being designed and constructed at UConn will be complete in 2009, and will be tested as soon as possible in another hall at J-Lab or a similar accelerator facility if J-Lab is unavailable. My work so far relates directly to this prototype.

The final experiment will be contained in the newly-constructed Hall D at J-Lab sometime around 2014. However, the prototype tagger microscope that is being designed and constructed at UConn will be complete in 2009, and will be tested as soon as possible in another hall at J-Lab or a similar accelerator facility if J-Lab is unavailable. My work so far relates directly to this prototype.