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April 1, 2026
Location: SB 145
Time: 12:00 pm
Presenter: Barak Schmookler
Imaging the Structure of Visible Matter:
A Journey from Fixed Target to Collider Experiments
Abstract:
Understanding how the properties of visible matter emerge from the underlying interactions between the quarks and gluons is one of the fundamental questions of nuclear physics. Fixed-target lepton scattering experiments and proton-proton collider experiments, such as those at Jefferson Lab and Brookhaven National Laboratory, respectively, have studied the full three-dimensional and spin structure of the nucleon in the valence quark regime. The future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) – with its variable center-of-mass energy, high luminosity, polarized beams, and use of different ion beams species – will be able to map the gluon and sea quark structure of nucleons and nuclei to a similar precision. The EIC will be the first major new collider built since the LHC, and its realization will mark the start of a new era of precision QCD measurements. In this talk, I will summarize the impact of prior and ongoing fixed-target and collider experiments on our understanding of nucleon structure. I will then discuss the rich physics opportunities at the EIC and the detector technologies needed to make the required precision measurements.
Dr. Schmookler is an assistant professor in experimental nuclear physics at the University of Houston, working on the realization of the EIC and on measurements at Jefferson Lab and STAR. He graduated from MIT in 2019, and his PhD thesis focused on measurements of the EMC effect and nucleon-nucleon short-range correlations at Jefferson Lab.
Light Lunch will be served.
