Research Statement
FSU physicists are exploring the hadronic nuclear matter utilizing the continuous electron beam accelerator at Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory. They are working to uncover how quarks and gluons behave in atomic nuclei with electron scattering and photproduction experiments. Dr. Paul Eugenio and Dr. Volker Crede are leaders in the effort to double the energy of Jefferson Lab's accelerator, which will make possible the production of a whole new class of matter-- gluonic matter. A major part of the Jefferson Lab upgrade is the construction of a hermetic detector (GlueX Experiment) in a new experimental hall (Hall D) which will be used to detect this new family of matter. The group has focused in part on the computing issues associated with the enormous amounts of data resulting from these experiments and has collaborated with computer scientists to make important advances in the handling of very large databases. Dr.Ostrivodov's expertise in partial wave analysis allows FSU to build on its strengths in theoretical and computational physics and apply these techniques to further enhance the nuclear research at CLAS, Jefferson Lab's large acceptence spectrometer in Hall B, and eventually to take full advantage of the upgrade to Jefferson Lab.