Visualizing the subatomic world of protons and nuclei

The understanding of proton structure is largely based on lepton scattering data interpreted in a boosted reference frame along the direction of the virtual photon. A collaboration of Jefferson Lab, MIT and Sputnik Animation earlier developed animations to visualize our current understanding of the quark and gluon structure of the proton. These animations have been expanded to allow visualization of the proton-neutron structure of nuclei, motion and binding. These proton-neutron based animations are used to convey important nuclear phenomena such as neutron halos and vibrational and rotational models.