The 28th conference from the Rochester series was the major high energy physics conference in 1996. Volume one contains short reports on new theoretical and experimental results. Volume two consists of the review talks presented in the plenary sessions.

These proceedings present the most up-to-date status of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) physics. Topics such as structure function measurements and phenomenology, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) studies in DIS and photoproduction, spin physics and diffractive interactions are reviewed in detail, with emphasis on those studies that push the test of QCD and the Standard Model to the limits of their present range of validity, towards both the very high and the very low four-momentum transfers in leptonproton scattering.

About three decades after the first experiments on deep inelastic lepton hadron scattering began to investigate the structure of hadrons, the history of this fruitful field of particle physics continues in the broad spectrum of research performed at the electron and positron proton collider HERA at DESY, where the multipurpose detectors ZEUS and H1 access ep scattering at a center of mass energy of 300 GeV and explore as yet uncharted kinematic realms of deep inelastic scattering. After the first years of data taking at HERA, each of the experiments has collected a total of roughly 40 pb 1 of e+p data, yielding sensitivity to deep inelastic e+p interactions at high four momentum transfers, Q2, where typi cal cross sections drop into the subpicobarn regime. This kinematic domain is characterized by electroweak unification, manifesting itself most markedly in the neutral and charged current cross sections, which approach an equal order of magnitude as Q2 rises above the square of the W and Z masses. Consequently, HERA allows, for the first time, studies of both types of pro cesses simultaneously with the same initial state conditions and in the same detector, and thus we can investigate the interplay of electroweak and strong forces governing the respective cross sections.

Deep Inelastic Scattering

This book reviews the latest experimental results on jet physics from proton-proton collisons at the LHC. Jets allow to determine the strong coupling constant over a wide range of energies up the highest ones possible so far, and to constrain the gluon parton distribution of the proton, both of which are important uncertainties on theory predictions in general and for the Higgs boson in particular.A novel approach in this book is to categorize the examined quantities according to the types of absolute, ratio, or shape measurements and to explain in detail the advantages and differences. Including numerous illustrations and tables the physics message and impact of each observable is clearly elaborated.

The proceedings of DIS 2001 present the most updated status of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) physics. Topics like structure function measurements and phenomenology, QCD studies in DIS and photoproduction, spin physics and diffractive interactions are reviewed in detail, with emphasis on those studies that push the test of QCD and the Standard Model to the limits of their present range of validity, towards both the very high and the very low four-momentum transfers in the lepton-proton scattering. Moreover, this workshop coincided with the transition between the first period of experimentation at the HERA ep collider at DESY and the start of the updated HERA II operation — allowing a review of what has been learned up to now and a discussion on the main future directions of research in this field.