Research Interests
Most of the visible mass of the universe is composed of protons and neutrons—particles which build up the cores of atoms. However, the protons and neutrons (nucleons) are themselves composed of more fundamental particles known as quarks and gluons and interestingly, these small constituents appear to be forever trapped inside their respective parent. An article in an August 2000 issue of the New York Times listed understanding confinement of quarks inside of protons and neutrons as one of the ten fundamental questions in physics to ponder for the 'next millennium or two'. While we believe that the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics, (QCD), can explain this confinement, an exact understanding of how QCD works has been extremely elusive.