QCD physics at hadron storage rings: From COSY to FAIR

Abstract

As a result of the rapid rise of the coupling constant α_s at low momentum transfers, perturbation theory is not an appropriate method to describe the strong interaction. In this kinematic regime other methods such as lattice QCD or effective field theories are more appropriate to investigate the appearance of a still unsettled phenomena: confinement and chiral symmetry breaking. Furthermore, the confinement of quarks and gluons to hadrons allows crucial tests of fundamental symmetries that are inherent to the QCD Lagrangian but are broken in hadronic systems. Thus, high precision measurements of the production and decay of specific hadronic states provides decisive benchmarks to investigate the properties of QCD in this regime. A new series of experiments are being prepared using nearly full acceptance detectors for neutral and charged particles around internal targets in high intensity, phase-space-cooled hadronic beams. Later this year, it is planned to transfer the WASA detector from the CELSIUS to the COSY ring in order to measure the production and various decay channels of the η and η′ mesons, thereby investigating the violation of P, C, T, and combinations thereof, as well as isospin violation. The experimental and theoretical techniques employed here will provide an important basis to extend these investigations to the static and dynamical properties of hadrons with charm quark content with the high energy storage ring for antiprotons at the new GSI/FAIR facility. Additional related perspectives will be opened at the new facility ranging from the properties of hadrons in dense nuclear matter to measurements of the nucleon’s transverse spin distribution in the valence quark region using polarized antiprotons