Hadron structure on the lattice

Abstract

The aim of these lectures will be to provide an introduction to some of the concepts needed to study the structure of hadrons on the lattice. Topics covered include the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon and pion, the nucleon’s axial charge and moments of parton and generalised parton distribution functions. These are placed in a phenomenological context by describing how they can lead to insights into the distribution of charge, spin and momentum amongst a hadron’s partonic constituents. We discuss the techniques required for extracting the relevant matrix elements from lattice simulations and draw attention to potential sources of systematic error. Examples of recent lattice results are presented and are compared with results from both experiment and theoretical models.