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Scientists use carefully designed experiments to acquire basic understanding of the physical world. A large number of physics experiments are done by scattering various particles to study their behavior thus to gain insight into how they interact. In studying the nuclear force, neutron-proton scattering provides an unique angle into learning how fundamental particles such as nucleons interact with each other. One basic parameter in describing the Nucleon-Nucleon (NN) interaction is the NN coupling constant, the precise value of which has been in great controversy. Different models of physics give values differing up to 10%. The accuracy of the NN coupling constant is important in understanding nucleon-nucleon interactions as well as other related phenomena such as chiral symmetry breaking in field theories and properties of two-nucleon systems such as the deuteron. In neutron-proton (np) scattering, the spin-transfer coefficient KNN' is a measurable quantity which directly relates to the +/- NN coupling constant, g2c. Precise measurement of the spin-transfer coefficient can be used to put constraint on the coupling constant, thus improve the accuracy of its value.
About the author
H. Yang obtained his PhD degree in physics in 2000. With a strong scientific background combined with IT skills, he's been involved in various research projects requiring extensive use of computers. In his current work as an IT professional, he provides support for services involving massive data storage, distributed computing and file systems.
