A.D. Martin, W.J. Stirling, R.G. Roberts, "New information on parton distributions," Physical Review D, 47:867-82, 1993.
Alan D. Martin (Centre for Particle Theory, University of Durham, England): "The use of energetic electrons (and other leptons) to probe the structure of the proton has had a long and successful history. These so-called deep-inelastic experiments have shown that the proton is composed of quark and gluon constituents--the more energetic the bombarding electron, the better its resolution and the more partons (quarks and gluons) that are `seen.' Parton distributions describe how the proton's energy is shared among its quark and gluon constituents. By measuring these distributions we can learn about how quarks and gluons interact, and test the theory of the strong interaction.
"In any high-energy collision involving the proton, the interaction takes place at the partonic level. That is, in a collision the proton delivers only part of its energy, since the ...
