protons

An experiment that will contribute vital knowledge about something deceptively simple – a proton’s spin – will soon come online at Fermilab. The experiment may either begin to validate the “potato salad” model of proton spin or force scientists to develop a new model entirely.

From NewScientist, March 8, 2021: The recent experiment results of asymmetry in protons published in Nature calling out the new research used to improve measurement techniques from Fermilab’s SeaQuest detector.

From Reccom Magazine, Feb. 26, 2021: Chuck Brown of the Fermilab SeaQuest research team is quoted in this piece on the sea of quarks inside the proton. The article discusses Fermilab’s contributions to the SeaQuest and NuSea experiments.

Protons are built from three quarks — two “up” quarks and one “down” quark. But they also contain a roiling sea of transient quarks and antiquarks that fluctuate into existence before swiftly annihilating one another. At the Fermilab-hosted SeaQuest experiment, researchers report that that lopsidedness persists in a realm of previously unexplored quark momenta.