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Hard Qcd Processes In The Nuclear Medium, Adam Freese

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The environment inside the atomic nucleus is one of the most fascinating arenas for the study of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The strongly-interacting nature of the nuclear medium affects the nature of both QCD processes and the quark-gluon structure of hadrons, allowing several unique aspects of the strong nuclear force to be investigated in reactions involving nuclear targets. The research presented in this dissertation explores two aspects of nuclear QCD: firstly, the partonic structure of the nucleus itself; and secondly, the use of the nucleus as a micro-laboratory in which QCD processes can be studied.

The partonic structure of the nucleus …