My Research

Parity Violating Electron Scattering (PVES) is an extremely successful precision frontier tool that have been using for testing the Standard Model (SM) and understanding nucleon structure. Several generations of highly successful PVES programs at SLAC, MIT-Bates, MAMI, and Jefferson Lab have contributed to understanding of nucleon structure and testing the SM. But missing phenomena like matter antimatter asymmetry, neutrino flavor oscillations, and dark matter and energy suggest that the SM is only a “low energy” effective theory. Historically, 1978 pioneering Prescott experiment at SLAC was the first successful PVES experiment that confirmed the electroweak theory of particle physics developed by S. Glashow, S. Weinberg and A. Salam as the SM of the particle physics. Several generations of highly successful PVES programs have contributed to understanding of nucleon structure and testing the SM. But missing phenomena like matter antimatter asymmetry, neutrino flavor oscillations, and dark matter and energy suggest that the SM is only a “low energy” effective theory. Precision measurements of the SM predicted quantities can be used to test the SM and discover new physics interactions beyond the SM. In nuclear physics the “EMC effect” has not yet been properly explained. Therefore an important question in hadronic physics is how protons and neutrons are modified when they are bound in a nucleus. A precise measurement of the neutron skin thickness which is a fundamental test of the nuclear theory, will pin down the density dependence of the symmetry energy of neutron rich nuclear matter which has impacts on heavy ion collisions and neutron stars. The current and next generation PVES experiments at Jefferson Lab will provide answers to these questions.