GTIIT-STU Optics Seminar

Title: Vortex states as a novel tool in nuclear and particle physics

Speaker: Prof. Igor Ivanov

Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, China

Abstract

Vortex states are freely propagating wave packets with helicoidal wave fronts and a nonzero orbital angular momentum projection on the propagation direction. This is a new, adjustable quantum number that has never been exploited in experimental nuclear and particle physics. Low-energy vortex photons, electrons, and neutrons have been demonstrated in experiment, and there exist proposals for generating vortex particles with MeV and GeV energies, making them excellent probes for nuclei and hadrons. I will give an overview of this topic and illustrate how collisions of vortex states offer access to new observables, inaccessible in plane-wave collisions.