What Can We Learn About Quarks, Gluons and Proton’s Internal Structure from Supercomputer Simulations?

Authors:

• Krzysztof Michał Cichy

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss contemporary research on constituents of the nucleon, making up atomic nuclei and giving mass to almost entire visible matter. These constituents, quarks and gluons, interact strongly and this interaction is described by quantum chromodynamics (QCD), one of the pillars of the Standard Model of elementary particles. QCD is much more complicated than e.g., quantum electrodynamics and several aspects can be investigated from first principles only via numerical calculations, by formulating it on a discretized spacetime grid, the lattice. The huge complexity of the problem causes it to require advanced tools and computing power offered by the world’s most powerful supercomputers. I discuss how QCD is formulated on the lattice such that it can be tackled on such machines, what we have learned so far and what are the directions of on-going and future research on nucleon structure from the lattice QCD.