Hadrons in the Nuclear Medium – Quarks, Nucleons, or a Bit of Both?

Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory governing the strong interaction of particles. It describes the interactions that bind quarks and gluons into protons and neutrons, and binds these into nuclei. We believe QCD to be as fundamental and complete as QED, the theory of electromagnetic interactions, whose predictions have been tested to more than ten decimal places. If it were possible to make calculations in QCD the same way we can in QED, we would have removed one of the biggest obstacles in the way of understanding matter in the universe. Unfortunately, the properties of QCD make such calculations impossible at present. Historically, there have been two approaches to this problem. First, we work to improve our ability to solve QCD, with the most visible effort being the field of Lattice QCD. Second, we make models of QCD that attempt to incorporate what we believe to be the most important symmetries, dynamics, or degrees of freedom, and then test these models against experimental measurements sensitive to these assumptions. Even the earliest quark models of hadrons structure and the simplest bag models have had great success, far beyond any reasonable expectation, indicating that these models have isolated some of the key features of QCD. More detailed models and ever more sophisticated experimental tests are significantly improving such details, and helping to better identify the most relevant features of QCD, one of the key missing pieces in our understanding of the nature of matter.