bdanders
330-672-9988 or 2771 (FAX: 2959)
bdanders
330-672-9988 or 2771 (FAX: 2959)
Publications from Spires Database
The research of Professor Anderson and his students is concerned with studies of the nature of the nuclear force and of the structure of nucleons (protons and neutrons). Professor Anderson is part of the experimental nuclear physics users group at Kent. He has performed experiments at more than 15 different accelerator laboratories in the U.S. and other countries. He is author, or co-author, on more than 100 papers in journals of nuclear physics. His research is presently centered around experiments being performed at the Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab) in Virginia, and at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York .
An experiment performed recently at JLab was designed to measure the charge distribution inside the neutron. Although the neutron is overall neutral, it has a positive core surrounded by a negative outer layer. The precise determination of this distribution provides one of the best tests presently available of models of the nucleon. These models include quark models, soliton models, and others. A precise determination of this charge distribution was not possible until recent developments in both accelerator facilities and nuclear detectors. Several measurements of this distribution are being performed world-wide. The measurement performed at JLab involved using a high-energy polarized beam of electrons incident upon a liquid deuterium target and detecting the scattered electron and knock-out neutron in coincidence. The polarization (spin direction) of the emitted neutron was measured using a neutron polarimeter developed by Kent State. This polarimeter consisted of 44 large-volume plastic-scintillation detectors arranged in 20 "front" scatterers and 24 "rear" detectors. This polarimeter is shown in the figure below. The experiment was successful and two students at Kent State are now analyzing data from this experiment for their Ph.D. Dissertation projects.
The research at Brookhaven involves using the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC), which is designed primarily to study high-energy heavy-ion reactions. About 15% of the beam time is reserved for studying high-energy proton-proton collisions. The object of these studies is to determine in detail where the "spin" of the proton comes from. Spin is intrinsic angular momentum. The proton is known to have a value of 1/2, in fundamental units (h/2pi). Although this value can be understood in terms of the simplest quark model of the proton, the structure of the proton is known to be more complicated than this simple model and the origin of the spin is presently somewhat of a puzzle. High-energy electron scattering experiments performed at the SLAC accelerator facility in California and at the CERN facility in Geneva, Switzerland have set certain limits on the origin of this spin. Additional measurements with proton beams are needed to further determine the origin of the spin. Kent State has joined with researchers from Indiana University, Argonne National Laboratory, and others to help install a new end-cap calorimeter on the STAR detector (shown in the figure below) at the RHIC accelerator to enable the study of these proton-proton collisions. It is expected that this calorimeter will be partly functional in 2003 and fully fucntional by 2005, in order to make these fundamental measurements of one of the basic building blocks of nuclei.
Professor Anderson is co-author, together with Emeritus Professor Nathan Spielberg, of the popular textbook entitled Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe, published by John Wiley. This text is primarily entended for non-science majors and uses only some algebra and very simple trigonometry to explain the development of physics from Aristotle to Einstein. This book has been used in a popular course of the same title at Kent State for over 20 years and has been used also in a number of other universities for similar courses.
Professor Anderson's "other" interests in physics presently include the physics of sailing and has written an introductory book on this subject published in October 2003, entitled The Physics of Sailing Explained, or see his talk.
Contact Professor Anderson at: bdanders@kent.edu