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Despite centuries of studying the atom and the particles within it, the mysteries of matter continue to elude scientists. What are we really made of?
To solve such an enigma and better understand the building blocks of our universe, Stony Brook University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) have partnered to establish the Center for Frontiers of Nuclear Science, bolstered by a new $5 million grant from the Simons Foundation.
Establishing the Center is a big step toward discovering the unknown essentials of matter for Stony Brook and BNL, which already have internationally renowned programs in nuclear physics. But before solving such a mystery, one must first know the clues. Here’s a quick breakdown.
Matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space. An atom is the smallest unit of matter. At an atom’s core is its nucleus, made of protons of neutrons — subatomic particles collectively called nucleons. Looking deeper, nucleons are made of elementary particles called quarks and gluons, and this is where the trail goes cold.
“The role of quarks and gluons in determining the properties of protons and neutrons remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in physics,” said Doon Gibbs, Ph.D., Brookhaven Lab Director.
Solving this mystery is the focus of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), a branch of theoretical physics that investigates how quarks and gluons interact as fundamental elements of matter.
Stony Brook and BNL’s new center is slated to become a leading international research and educational hub for QCD over the next several decades, uniting our faculty, students and researchers with BNL staff and scientists from around the world in an effort to crack the quantum case.
One key aspect of the Center’s launch is a proposed Electron Ion Collider (EIC), a powerful new particle accelerator that would create rapid-fire, high-resolution “snapshots” of quarks and gluons contained in nucleons and complex nuclei — crucial to QCD progress.
“An Electron Ion Collider would reveal the internal structure of these atomic building blocks, a key part of the quest to understand the matter we’re made of,” Gibbs said.
Abhay Deshpande, professor of experimental nuclear physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been named Director of the Center, as well as Director of Electron Ion Collider Science at BNL.
A champion of the EIC for decades, Deshpande is positioned to lead development of the collider, which was deemed highest priority for new facility construction by the National Science Foundation’s Nuclear Science Advisory Committee in an effort to strengthen and expand U.S. leadership in nuclear physics and stimulate economic benefits well into the 2040s.
Like most mysteries, collaboration is the key to success, so Deshpande is focused on uniting QCD and EIC experts from around the globe with Stony Brook students who will serve as the next generation of researchers in the field.
Despite the complexity of nuclear physics and related areas of study, the results of such research could reveal the most basic aspects of our very existence.
Through major funding, the Simons Foundation is bonding a partnership between Stony Brook and BNL perhaps as strong as the interaction between quarks and gluons.