Haiyan Gao, Professor and Associate Chair  

Haiyan Gao

Office Location: 2313 FFSC
Office Phone: (919)660-2622
Email Address: gao@phy.duke.edu
Web Page: http://www.tunl.duke.edu/~mep

Specialties:
Experimental nuclear physics

Education:
Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, 1994
B.S., Tsinghua University, 1988

Current projects: Neutron EDM, HIGS Compton scattering program, neutron transversity experiment at JLab , study of exclusive processes and search for phi-N bound state

Research Description: Prof. Gao's research focuses on understanding the structure of the nucleon and exclusive nucleon and nuclear processes at high energies in terms of quark and gluon degrees of freedom of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) using high energy electron and photon beams as probes. Most of her work utilizes the novel experimental technique of scattering polarized electrons or photons from polarized gas targets. Her group has built a laser-driven polarized H/D internal gas target with the highest Figure-Of-Merit ever achieved for such a target. Her group has also built a high-pressure polarized 3He target to probe the neutron and 3He spin polarizabilities using the HIGS facility at DFELL. She and her group are also embarking on a challenging experiment aiming at a two orders of magnitude improvement over the current limit on the neutron electric dipole moment. A non-zero value of the neutron electric dipole moment is a direct search for time-reversal symmetry violation. Such an experiment will make important contributions to the understanding of CP violation and to the search of New Physics beyond the Standard Model. Her group is also actively engaged in the search of exotic QCD states such as the phi-nucleon bound state, a QCD molecular state. Her research is being carried out at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab) in Newport News, Virginia, the HIGS facility at DFELL, and the future Fundamental Neutron Beam Line at the SNS, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Areas of Interest:
QCD Physics, Fundamental symmetry study, test of the Standard Model of Physics

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

  1. B. Clasie et al., Measurement of Nuclear Transparency for the $A(e,e'\pi^+)$ Reaction, Physical Review Letters, vol. 99 (2007), pp. 242502 .
  2. T. Mibe, H. Gao, et al., Coherent Phi-meson Photoproduction on Deuteron at Low Energies, Physical Review C, vol. 76 (2007), pp. 052202R .
  3. S. Liska, H. Gao, W. Chen and X. Qian, The search for $\phi$-N bound state from subthresold production of $\phi$ meson, Phys. Rev. C, vol. 75 (2007), pp. 058201 .
  4. A. Danagoulian et al., Compton Scattering Cross Section on the Proton at High Momentum Transfer, Phys. Rev. Letts., vol. 98 (2007), pp. 152001 .
  5. C. Crawford et al., Measurement of the proton electric to magnetic form factor ratio from ${\vec p}(\vec e, e'p)$, Phys. Rev. Letts., vol. 98 (2007), pp. 052301 .

Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

  • Wangzhi Zheng  
  • Wei Chen  
  • Xing Zong  
  • Xin Qian  
  • Qiang Ye  
Postdocs Mentored

  • Yi Qiang (May 01, 2007 - present)  
  • Xiaofeng Zhu (January 15, 2006 - present)  
  • Kevin Kramer (2003/08-2006/07)  
  • Krishni Wijesooriya (2003/02-2003/07)  
  • Wang Xu (November 1, 2002 - May 15, 2005)  
  • Xiang Hong (1999/11-2002/10)  
  • Dipangkar Dutta (1999/02-2003/01)  
  • Timothy Black (1998/03-1999/06)