Measuring Neutral Pion Polarizability using the GlueX detector at Jefferson Lab

The polarizability of an object measures the extent that an electric field will induce an electric dipole moment in a system. Quantum chromodynamics predicts the polarizability for strongly interacting particles, such as neutral pions. The study analyzes data from The Neutral Pion Polarizability experiment (NPP); which utilizes a Bremsstrahlung photon beam that impinges on a Lead 208 target where we wish to isolate the reaction: γ 208Pb → π0π0 208Pb. This reaction is sensitive to the neutral pion's polarizability. Jefferson lab, in Virginia, houses a 12 GeV electron beam, which through the bremsstrahlung process produces a photon beam which is brought to Hall D and hits our lead target. The GlueX detector captures information from our reactions in order to help us understand the structure of hadrons. To approach the challenge of extracting fully exclusive data for the reaction, this research applies rigorous selection criteria to the CPP (2022) data run, where 129,152,986,149 events were recorded. The analysis code applies acceptance and physical cuts to remove background and produce results entirely based off the desired reaction. This study demonstrates the cuts applied, as well as the physical reasoning behind those cuts, and produces results that can then be interpreted to gain a better understanding of the neutral pion and it's polarizability.