Orateur
M.
Frederic Georges
(IPN)
Description
The internal structure of the nucleon - that is, what ordinary matter is made of and what the laws describing it are at their most fundamental level - is still not fully understood by modern nuclear physics. Form factors provide insight about parton positions while parton distribution functions give information about their momentum distribution inside the nucleon, but no correlations can be established between parton positions and momenta at this level.
Introduced in the mid 90’s, Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) provide a higher level of information since they correlate longitudinal momentum and transversal position of partons inside the nucleon. GPDs give a three-dimensional description of the internal structure of the nucleon. GPDs also give insights on the nucleon spin structure.
It has been established that GPDs are experimentally accessible through Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering (DVCS) and its interference with the Bethe-Heitler process. A worldwide experimental program was started in the early 2000’s, and more specifically, a DVCS experiment studying the process ep -> epγ is currently ongoing at Jefferson Laboratory, Hall A (Virginia, USA).
The goal of my PhD is to take an active part in the data acquisition of this ongoing experiment, and then analyze these data in order to extract the DVCS helicity-dependent cross sections, as a function of the momentum transfer: Q². These cross sections will allow us to access the GPDs of interest and get insights on their dependence in Q², and thus, improve our understanding of the internal structure of the nucleon.
Auteur principal
M.
Frederic Georges
(IPN)
