On Wednesday, Jan. 15, at 2 p.m., Hall A Winter Collaboration featured speaker Dennis Sivers of the University of Michigan and the Portland Physics Institute will present "Angular Momentum in Quantum Gauge Theory" in CEBAF Center rm. F113 and via Zoom. The lab community is invited to attend this event.
Abstract: The concept of “spin” was invented in the first part of the 20th century when it was realized that if the angular momentum of the electron was associated with a spinning ball, the surface of the ball would be traveling faster than the speed of light. In quantum mechanics, we separate fundamental objects into fermions and bosons. Fermions occupy space and are subject to the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Bosons permeate space and can form condensates where coherence deflects the concept of particle number. Gauge field theories combine fermions and bosons in very specific ways and the self-duality of the gauge sector of the Standard Model relates the quantization of charge to the quantization of angular momentum.