The Partonic Content of Nucleons and Nuclei

Understand

Deepening our knowledge of the partonic content of nucleons and nuclei represents a central endeavour of modern high-energy and nuclear physics, with ramifications in related disciplines such as astroparticle physics.

• There are two main scientific drivers motivating these investigations of the partonic structure of hadrons.
• On the one hand, addressing fundamental open issues in our understanding in the strong interactions such as the origin of the nucleon mass, spin, and transverse structure; the presence of heavy quarks in the nucleon wave function; and the possible onset of novel gluon-dominated dynamical regimes.
• On the other hand, pinning down with the highest possible precision the substructure of nucleons and nuclei is a central component for theoretical predictions in a wide range of experiments, from proton and heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider to ultra-high energy neutrino interactions at neutrino telescopes.