Hadron Structure

Abstract

I discuss a Born (\hbar \to 0) approximation of hadrons, motivated by a general feature of the data: The spectra of hadrons reflect their valence (q\bar q or qqq) constituents, whereas hard scattering reveals a prominent sea quark distribution. Why do the sea quark d.o.f's not imply a richer spectrum? I look for an approach that can reconcile the quark and parton model descriptions of hadrons, and consider how this physics could emerge from the QCD Lagrangian. The possibilities are reduced by insisting that the approximation should be simple, yet adhere to the rules of quantum field theory. One might suspect that no such method exists -- but the Born approximation presents itself. The description of relativistic bound states that it brings has interesting features which merit further exploration.