Coordinators: M. La Cognata, M. Osipenko

Experiments in this area are focused on the investigation of the sctructure and intercations of the constituents of the nuclei, mainly protons and neutrons, and more in general of the systems made up of quarks, the so-called hadrons, with the aim of understanding the properties of this state of the matter.

Figure 1 Hadrons classification

Our goal is to answer the fundamental questions such as the origin of hadron masses, the stability of protons and to find out whether effects beyond the predictions by quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory that is used to describe the strong interaction at a fundamental level, are observed.

Several Italian groups are invoved in research programs aiming at investigating light quarks dynamics in the framwork of non-perturbative QCD, in many international laboratories making it possible to carry out complementary measurements. Amoung these, there are Italian laboratories such as INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, and international facilities such as Jefferson Lab (USA), J-PARC (Japan), il CERN (Switzerland), MAMI ed ELSA (Germany), using both electromagnetic (electons and photons) and hadronic probes.

A common feature of these experiments, which is also an excellence of CSN3, is the development of polarized targets. Such know-how has been also applied to research in the field of simmetries and nuclear and nucleons structure.

Finally, the Italians nuclear physics community plays and important role in the R&D activity behind the development of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), to be installed at the Brookhaven Lab (USA).

The CSN3 experiments devoted to the study of quark and hadron dynamics are: EIC_NET, JLAB12, KAONNIS, MAMBO, ULYSSES.