Hard Scattering Processes in QCD

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This project consists of theoretical research dealing with semi-inclusive and exclusive scattering processes in the region of intermediate to high energies, with a particular emphasis on polarization phenomena. The study of such reactions has attracted considerable interest during recent years as they allow one to explore for the first time the three-dimensional parton structure of the nucleon, and to investigate a set of new, intriguing, and nontrivial questions related to perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The research program mainly addresses two key topics: first, new ways for exploring the underlying physics of single spin phenomena in high energy processes will be outlined. Second, it will be studied in detail how the three-dimensional gluon structure of the nucleon, both in momentum space and in position space, can be deciphered. In order to carry out this program a number of conceptual model-independent investigations as well as numerical/phenomenological studies will be used. The project is directly related to ongoing and planned measurements in lepton hadron collisions at the Jefferson Laboratory (JLab) in Newport News, VA, and in proton proton collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Brookhaven, NY. In the future, a potential new Electron Ion Collider (EIC) will also address this physics. These activities will help us to better understand the structure of protons and neutrons at unprecedented levels of detail and with new ways of visualizing the scientific basis for that understanding. Graduate students will be involved in this very active field at the frontier of current hadronic physics.