Deep Inelastic Scattering

Deep Inelastic Scattering provides an up-to-date, self-contained account of deep inelastic scattering in high-energy physics, intended for graduate students and physicists new to the subject. It covers the classic results which led to the quark-parton model of hadrons and the establishment of quantum chromodynamics as the theory of the strong nuclear force, in addition to new vistas in the subject opened up by the electron-proton collider HERA. The extraction of parton momentum distribution functions, a key input for physics at hadron colliders such as the Tevatron at Fermi Lab and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, is described in detail. The challenges of the HERA data at 'low x' are described and possible explanations in terms of gluon dynamics and other models outlined.

Other chapters cover: jet production at large momentum transfer and the determination of the strong coupling constant, electroweak interactions at very high momentum transfers, the extension of deep inelastic techniques to include hadronic probes, a summary of fully polarised inelastic scattering and the spin structure of the nucleon, and finally a brief account of methods in searching for signals 'beyond the standard model'.

Robin Devenish joined the Department of Physics and Hertford College at the University of Oxford in 1979 and was awarded the title of Professor in 1996. He has worked on particle physics phenomenology and experimental high-energy physics, particularly electron-positron annihilation at DORIS and PETRA and with the ZEUS collaboration at the electron-proton collider HERA since its inception. Amanda Cooper-Sarkar joined the Rutherford Laboratory in 1979 and held a CERN Senior Fellowship 1983-85. In 1990, she joined the Department of Physics and St. Hilda's College at the University of Oxford, and St. John's College in 1995. She has worked on deep inelastic scattering experiments and phenomenology for more than 20 years, starting with the early neutrino induced experiments at the BEBC detector at CERN in the 1980s and moving on to join the ZEUS collaboration at the electron-proton collider HERA.