Tord Johansson

Research interests: Hadron Physics, a field in the borderline between nuclear and elementary particle physics. Hadron Physics deals with one of the most challenging problems in contemporary physics, the understanding of the strong force that binds together the elementary constituents - quarks and gluons - into the observed particles. Protons and neutrons are the most familiar examples of hadrons; they are  composite particles that build the atomic nucleus. Although it is believed that the formulation of the underlying theory, Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD), that describes the interaction between the constituents is correct, very little is known about its solution at distances that are relevant to the matter surrounding us. Two features of the strong interaction makes it very special: The bare masses of the constituents make up only a few percent of the particle masses and the constituents have never been observed as free particles. This is why Hadron Physics such a challenging and interesting field of research.

Present research: Symmetries and their breaking plays a major role for the understanding of the strong interaction. The mixing among the physical hadrons and the breaking of isospin symmetry are examples of this. Such phenomena are subject to experimental studies with WASA-at-COSY and KLOE-2 experiments.
Hadron spectroscopy is the experimental basis for the quark model and QCD. To find and investigate hadronic systems of non-standard combinations of quarks and gluons would do much to elucidate the strong interaction. Glueballs, particles consisting only of gluons, are examples this. The exploration of such states created in antiproton annihilations is one of the main topics for the PANDA experiment at upcoming FAIR facility in Germany.

Courses: Nuclear Physics, undergraduate course
              Statistical Methods in Physics, master course

Misc: Important icehockey links: BIF1  BIF2

Links: arXiv.org , SPIRES , Google , Webster dictionary , Department seminars , CDP seminars, Ib-Karinz