Hadron Dynamics and Spectroscopy

The Standard Model provides a remarkably successful theory of matter and the fundamental interactions. The strong interactions are described by QCD and are generated by gluons interacting with quarks, the basic building blocks of hadronic matter. It has been extensively tested at very short distances where the interaction is weak but is less well understood at large distances where the interaction is strong and the perturbative techniques needed to make quantitative analytical predictions break down. This project focuses on this strongly interacting region and the nature of the hadronic states predicted in QCD, and in particular the phenomenology of mixed quark-gluon states and multiquark states. The existence of these states has not yet been firmly established, yet are necessary in QCD. This project will develop tests and analyse the evidence for such states, including the mixed gluon/quark-antiquark states, quark-gluon hybrid mesons and multiquark systems