Theory of high-energy electron scattering by composite targets

The emphasis of these expository lectures is on the role of relativistic invariance and the unity of the theory for medium and high energies. Sec. 2 introduces the kinematic notation and provides an elementary derivation of the general cross section. The relevant properties of the Poincare group and the transformation properties of current operators and target states are described in Sec 3. In Sec. 4 representations of target states with kinematic light-front symmetry are briefly discussed. The focus is on two applications. An impulse approximation of inclusive electron nucleus scattering at both medium and high energies. A parton model of the proton applied to deep inelastic scattering of polarized electrons by polarized protons. 19 refs