research overview
- Dr. Kinney's research is focused on understanding the structure of the proton and neutron in terms of the constituent quarks and gluons. This study is experimental and phenomenological, using high energy reactions to determine the distribution of the quarks and gluons in the nucleon in both space and in momentum as well as how the quarks and gluons are polarized. A fundamental question which remains unanswered is how the mass and spin of the proton arises from the quark and gluon contributions. New studies of the semi-inclusive deep inelastic reaction at the recently upgraded Jefferson Lab allow precise tests of the reaction model, allowing new precise measurements of quark distributions for each flavor. New work is focused on measuring the details of how a highly energetic quark for transforms into a shower of energetic hadronic particles. Current research is the study of the high-momentum component of quarks in the nucleon, both unpolarized and polarized.
