Speaker： Xiangdong Ji, T.D. Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Time:  June 2, 2026,Tuesday,10:30 am
Location: Room 9409

 
Abstract:

The Big Bang energy was preserved inside the protons and neutrons (nucleons) through the confinement mechanism of strong interactions in the process of expansion and cooling of the Universe, becoming the sources for stellar evolution and solar energy. Understanding the confinement mechanism and energy structure of the nucleon demands a better coordinate and momentum space picture in terms of QCD quark and gluon mechanisms. Generalized parton distributions and deeply virtual diffractive scattering processes provide the necessary tools and methods for exploring the structure of the nucleon through next-generation electron-ion colliders in the US and China.

Speaker Profile:

Xiangdong Ji, Hong Wen Chair Professor at T.D. Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He received his Ph.D. from Drexel University in 1987. He has held various research and teaching positions at Caltech, MIT, and the University of Maryland, where he was a Distinguished University Professor. His main research area includes quantum chromodynamics and nucleon structure. He proposed generalized parton distributions as a tool to describe the 3D structure of the nucleon and to study the spin, energy, and force densities inside. He found a new class of high-energy scattering, deeply virtual exclusive processes including Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering (DVCS), to image the nucleon structure, which has become an important part of the physics program at the Electron-Ion Collider.

He is the founder of the PandaX collaboration, which uses liquid xenon detectors for dark matter detection and studies of neutrinos.

Awards and recognitions: APS Fellow, Humboldt Research Prize, Outstanding Nuclear Physicist Award from JSA, First Prizes from MOE, APS Herman Feshbach Prize, Ruiyan Science and Technology Award from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.