3d Spin

How does the inside of a proton look like?
Protons are the smallest composite structures of the universe presently known. Mapping their inner structure is a challenge at the edge of human possibilities: to have an idea, a proton on a soccer ball is as big as a grain of sand on the surface of the sun. Today we know that inside protons there are quarks and gluons and we have a precise idea of how they are distributed in a single dimension. The goal of 3DSPIN is to map the structure of the proton in three dimensions. If we compared the proton to a hand, it would be like going from a Chinese shadow to a CAT scan.

Where does the “spin” of the proton comes from?
Spin is a fundamental property of nature, like mass, electric charge, light polarization. It is often assimilated to a rotation of the proton around itself (whence the name spin). 3DSPIN will study how quarks and gluon organize themselves to generate the spin of the proton, as if they were dancer swirling together in a complicated waltzer.

3DSPIN is a base research project, without immediate applications. ERC grants have scientific excellence as their sole, independently of the topic of research and its concrete applications. Protons, together with neutron, contain practically all the mass of our world: knowing their internal structure is essential in the study of several phenomena (in particular in elementary particle physics, nuclear physics, atomic physics and astrophysics).