Deep inelastic scattering

Feynman diagram representing deep inelastic scattering of a lepton (l) on a hadron (h), at leading order in perturbative expansion. The virtual photon (γ*) knocks a quark (q) out of the hadron.

In particle physics, deep inelastic scattering is the name given to a process used to probe the insides of hadrons (particularly the baryons, such as protons and neutrons), using electrons, muons and neutrinos.[1][2] It was first attempted in the 1960s and 1970s and provided the first convincing evidence of the reality of quarks, which up until that point had been considered by many to be a purely mathematical phenomenon. It is an extension of Rutherford scattering to much higher energies of the scattering particle and thus to much finer resolution of the components of the nuclei.

Henry Way Kendall, Jerome Isaac Friedman and Richard E. Taylor were joint recipients of the Nobel Prize of 1990 "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics."[3]

  1. ^ Devenish, Robin; Cooper-Sarkar, Amanda (2003). Deep Inelastic Scattering. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198506713.001.0001. ISBN 9780198506713.
  2. ^ Feltesse, Joël (March 2012). Introduction to Deep Inelastic Scattering: Past and Present. XX International Workshop on Deep-Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects. University of Bonn. doi:10.3204/DESY-PROC-2012-02/6.
  3. ^ "Nobel prize citation". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2011-01-08.