UNC-CH Physics and Astronomy Seminar

Christopher Monahan, INT

“Light cone physics from lattice QCD”

First principles calculations of light cone physics, such as the Bjorken-x dependence of hadron structure, have been a long-standing challenge for Euclidean field theory. This year marks a significant milestone: the first determinations of parton distribution functions, which capture the longitudinal momentum structure of fast-moving hadrons, at physical pion masses. I will review the significant progress in our understanding of the theoretical frameworks underpinning these calculations, and highlight the various sources of systematic uncertainty that must be addressed for a complete, ab initio approach to nonperturbative light cone physics.