Bernard Frois - Böcker

From its early beginnings at SLAC in the 1970's, the study of nucleon spin structure using polarized lepton beams and polarized nucleon targets has become increasingly important in nuclear and particle physics, with current experiments at several of the world's high energy and nuclear physics laboratories (CERN, DESY, SLAC and Jefferson Lab) and with enormous related theoretical studies. The understanding of the fascinating but complicated problem of nucleon spin structure has progressed substantially, but fundamental questions remain and it can be confidently predicted that future activity will be high.The Erice Course on The Spin Structure of the Nucleon covered both the experimental and theoretical aspects of the subject, and this volume includes the lectures given at the School. In many cases the lecture material has been extended and updated by the authors. In addition, several recent publications on experimental work have been added in an appendix.

In the last few years there has been considerable progress in improving the accuracy of parity violation experiments in electron scattering at high energy and in atomic physics. Recent results are a challenge to the standard electroweak theory and our understanding of hadron structure. This book is an extensive review of the advances in this field. The theoretical framework is presented at a pedagogical level, experiments and future projects are reviewed, and the results and their interpretation are discussed in depth.