Quark Nuclear Physics Laboratory

Summary

     We investigate the structure and nature of hadrons, where quarks are confined, through the photoproduction experiments at ELPH and SPring-8. Both the ground and excited states of hadrons with u, d, and s quarks can be complementarily studied at the two facilities, which continuously cover the photon energy range from 0.6~GeV to 2.9~GeV. So far, a pentaquark candidate with hidden strangeness, “$N^*(1670)$”, has been indicated by the η photoproduction experiments using the 4π electromagnetic calorimeter complex “FOREST” at ELPH. The high statistics data with FOREST also enables us to carry out the precise measurements of the meson-nucleon scattering length, the double meson photoproduction cross sections, etc. Another important issue in our experiments at ELPH and SPring-8 is the studies of the hadron mass generation, which is expected to be closely related with the nature of the QCD vacuum. The extremely high density property of the nucleus opens up the possibilities to observe the phase transition phenomenon of the QCD vacuum. For this purpose, we have also constructed the large acceptance electromagnetic calorimeter “BGOegg”, consisting of 1320 BGO crystals. The experiments with BGOegg has started at SPring-8/LEPS2 in order to search for the $\eta^\prime$-mesic nuclei.

STAFF

Professor　Hiroaki Ohnishi

Specially Appointed Professor　Norihito Muramatsu

Assistant Professor　Manabu Miyabe

Assistant Professor　Atsushi Tokiyasu

Assistant Professor　Yuji Matsumura

Research Professor　Hajime Shimizu

Research Professor　Jirohta Kasagi

  • Nuclear Physics, Condensed Matter Nuclear Science
  • TEL：022-743-3414
  • E-mail：kasagi*lns.tohoku.ac.jp (Please replace * with @)
  • researchmap：https://researchmap.jp/kasagi-01