Strong QCD Insights from Excited Nucleon Structure Studies with CLAS and CLAS12

Abstract

Studies of the spectrum of hadrons and their structure in experiments with electromagnetic probes offer unique insight into many facets of the strong interaction in the regime of large quark-gluon running coupling, {\it i.e.} the regime of strong QCD. The experimental program within Hall~B at Jefferson Laboratory based on data acquired with the CLAS spectrometer using electron and photon beams with energies up to 6~GeV has already considerably extended the scope of research in hadron physics in joint efforts between experiment and phenomenological data analysis. Impressive progress in relating the hadron structure observables inferred from the data to the strong QCD mechanisms underlying hadron mass generation has been achieved in the past decade. These results will be considerably extended with data from the experimental program with the new CLAS12 spectrometer that has begun data taking using electron beams with energies up to 11~GeV. With this extended kinematic reach the structure of nucleon resonances will be probed at the highest photon virtualities ever achieved in the studies of exclusive electroproduction, which will allow for the exploration of the distance scale where $>$98\% of light hadron mass emerges from QCD in the transition of the strong interaction from the regime of quark-gluon confinement to perturbative QCD.