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Searching for the rules that govern hadron construction

Nature volume 534, pages 487–493 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Just as quantum electrodynamics describes how electrons are bound in atoms by the electromagnetic force, mediated by the exchange of photons, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) describes how quarks are bound inside hadrons by the strong force, mediated by the exchange of gluons. QCD seems to allow hadrons constructed from increasingly many quarks to exist, just as atoms with increasing numbers of electrons exist, yet such complex constructions seemed, until recently, not to be present in nature. Here we describe advances in the spectroscopy of mesons that are refining our understanding of the rules for predicting hadron structure from QCD.

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Figure 1: The charmonium spectrum.
Figure 2: Electron–positron annhiliation cross-sections.
Figure 3: Number of events collected as a function of invariant mass.
Figure 4: Lattice QCD computation of the meson spectrum.
Figure 5: Calculation of the ρ resonance.

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Acknowledgements

J.J.D. acknowledges support provided by US Department of Energy contract DE-AC05-06OR23177, under which Jefferson Science Associates manages Jefferson Laboratory and the Early Career Award contract DE-SC0006765. M.R.S. and R.E.M. are supported by US Department of Energy contract DE-FG02-05ER41374. M.R.S. acknowledges the Jefferson Science Associates Sabbatical Leave Support Program. We thank L. Weinstein for comments on the initial draft of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Indiana University, Bloomington, 47405, Indiana, USA

    Matthew R. Shepherd & Ryan E. Mitchell

  2. Department of Physics, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, 23529, Virginia, USA

    Jozef J. Dudek

  3. Jefferson Lab, Newport News, Virginia, 23606, USA

    Jozef J. Dudek

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  1. Matthew R. Shepherd
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  2. Jozef J. Dudek
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All authors contributed equally to this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Matthew R. Shepherd.

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Shepherd, M., Dudek, J. & Mitchell, R. Searching for the rules that govern hadron construction. Nature 534, 487–493 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18011

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