Partonët

Partonët is the Albanian term for partons—the fundamental constituents of hadrons such as protons and neutrons—as described in the parton model and in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). In this usage, partonët include quarks, antiquarks, and gluons that participate in high-energy processes. The concept emerged in the 1960s to explain the results of deep inelastic scattering, where hadrons appear to be collections of point-like constituents. The parton distribution functions (PDFs) quantify the probability of finding a parton carrying a given fraction x of the hadron’s momentum when probed at a resolution scale Q^2. The factorization theorem allows most high-energy cross sections to be expressed as a convolution of PDFs with calculable hard-scattering cross sections.

In QCD, partons interact via the strong force; quarks carry color charge and gluons themselves are partons. At short distances (high Q^2) they behave as nearly free particles (asymptotic freedom), while at longer distances they become confined within hadrons. The energy-scale dependence of PDFs is described by the DGLAP evolution equations. Observables such as structure functions measured in deep inelastic scattering reveal Bjorken scaling approximately, with small logarithmic violations explained by QCD.

Partonët are central to the description of collider processes, including jet production and hadron structure measurements at facilities like the LHC and previously at SLAC. The ongoing determination of PDFs from experimental data remains essential for precision predictions in particle physics.