Experimental nuclear physics in fundamental symmetries and low-energy QCD at Montclair State University

A new experimental nuclear physics research group and laboratory is being launched at Montclair State University, a public R2 Hispanic-Serving Institute in northern-NJ near the heart of the Tri-State metropolitan area. Our group plays leading roles in two collaborations: the neutron Electric Dipole Moment at the Spallation Neutron Source (nEDM@SNS) located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the nuclear Compton scattering from light-nuclei at the High-Intensity Gamma-ray Source (Compton@HIGS) at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) located at Duke University. The nEDM@SNS experiment will improve our sensitivity for the time-reversal-symmetry-violating static neutron EDM by around two orders of magnitude by exploiting a confluence of unique properties between ultracold neutrons, superfluid helium-4, and polarized helium-3. Our group leads the development efforts of the measurement cells at the heart of our building-sized apparatus and data analysis, including developing a new novel technique for searching for interactions with axion-like particles. The Compton@HIGS collaboration is performing a series of differential cross-section measurements of the nano-barn-sized nuclear Compton scattering from cryogenic liquid hydrogen, deuterium, helium-4, and helium-3using gamma photons from the HIGS free-electron-laser-based mono-energetic gamma-ray source. This will improve our knowledge of the electric and magnetic polarizabilities of the nucleons and offer an excellent testing ground for low-energy QCD.