Physics at the Light-Front

Abstract

The light-front representation of quantum chromodynamics provides a frame-independent, quantum-mechanical representation of hadrons at the amplitude level, capable of encoding their multi-quark, hidden-color and gluon momentum, helicity, and flavor correlations in the form of universal process-independent hadron wavefunctions. The universality and frame-independence of the LCWF's thus allow a profound connection between diffractive dissociation, hard scattering exclusive processes such as elastic form factors, two-photon reactions, and heavy hadron decays. In this concluding talk of the ECT* International Conference On Light-Cone Physics: Particles And Strings (Trento 2001), I review recent calculations and new applications of light-front wavefunctions in QCD and other theories. I also review the distinction between the structure functions measured in deep inelastic lepton scattering and the quark distributions determined from light-front wavefunctions.

Invited talk presented at the International Light-Cone Workshop "Light-cone Physics: Particles and Strings" at ECT* in Trento, Italy, September 3-11, 2001