Session U3: Invited Session: DNP Prize/Award Session

Herman Feshbach Prize: the Quest for a Fundamental Understanding of the Structure of Nuclei and Nucleons

The inaugural Feshbach prize recognizes lifetime contributions to understanding the structure of the basic building blocks of matter in terms of their constituents and the fundamental interactions between them. Initially this meant understanding the structure of nuclei in terms of nucleons interacting via nucleon-nucleon forces. I will describe a density functional theory for calculating nuclear properties directly from nuclear forces. It identifies mechanisms for ``saturation,'' relates the Skyrme interaction to nuclear forces, and with two parameters characterizing experimentally unknown aspects of nuclear forces yields nuclear binding energies, single particle energies, and charge distributions close to experiment. After the discovery of quarks and QCD, the goal became understanding how the structure of nucleons and ultimately the missing physics in nuclear forces emerge from quarks interacting via QCD. I will explain the use of lattice QCD to calculate the properties of nucleons, show recent results yielding agreement with experiment for the charge and magnetization radii, magnetic moment, and quark momentum fraction, and comment on the prospects for its use to understand aspects of nuclei and nucleon-nucleon interactions.   

Bonner Prize Talk: PHENIX, Serendipity and Interferometry

The main portion of this talk will be devoted to the history of the PHENIX Experiment, highlighting the discoveries made in the initial years of RHIC operations, in particular the characterization of the near-perfect fluidity of quark-gluon plasma. Serendipity played a role, but not so much as did the extraordinary efforts of an entire collaboration to deploy and utilize a particularly complex detector to understand the properties of strongly-coupled matter. I will also use the opportunity of the Bonner Prize to discuss briefly the important role of serendipity in research.   

The Proton Radius Puzzle- A problem for all of us

The extremely precise extraction of the proton radius obtained by Pohl et al and Antognini et al from the measured energy difference between the 2P and 2S states of muonic hydrogen disagrees significantly with that obtained from electronic hydrogen or elastic-electron proton scattering. This discrepancy is known as the proton radius puzzle. The talk explains the origins of this puzzle and the reasons for believing it to be important. In particular, the muon-proton interaction may differ from the electron-proton interaction in unexpected ways. Various possible solutions of the puzzle are identified and the future research needed for resolution is discussed.