Search for exotic mesons at GlueX

The existence of exotic mesons is a highly debated topic in the nuclear and particle physics communities. This type of particle, which is predicted by our current model of the strong interaction, has not been fully established, yet. It's existence (or absence) has a large impact on our current understanding of how quarks and gluons, the building blocks of matter, interact.

This research project will contribute to the ongoing efforts of the GlueX collaboration. GlueX is an experiment dedicated to the search for exotic mesons. Over the past four years large photoproduction data sets of were collected. These interactions between high energy photons and protons create a large variety of particles, whose decay products are measured in the GlueX detector setup. Photoproduction is also expected to produce exotic mesons, albeit with a small probability. For this reason, a careful analysis of the data is crucial in order to uncover the tiny signals hidden under the vast number of ordinary mesons. This requires the use of innovative data analysis techniques. The project will explore the possibilities to use artificial intelligence to enhance our capabilities in the hunt for exotic mesons as well as expand on currently used Bayesian analysis techniques. Developing these promising methods will help GlueX and the wider hadron spectroscopy community in the future, not only for the search for exotic particles, but for new particles in general.