http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/0492

The fractal structure of multiplicity fluctuations ('intermittency') in high energy multiparticle production is discussed with experimental results from fixed target and collider experiments on e+e-, p, hadronic and nuclear collisions. Theoretical investigations concern the selfsimilar dynamics of particle cascades and quark-gluon-plasma as well as the structure of particle correlations

Hadronic decays of Z° bosons produced in ee− annihilation are ideal for testing QCD. This thesis presents a measurement of the charged-particle multiplicity distribution and the first experimental study of the ratio of cumulant to factorial moments, using hadronic Z° decays collected by the SLD experiment at SLAC. The author finds that this ratio, as a function of the moment-rank q, decreases sharply to a negative minimum at q = 5, which is followed by quasi-oscillations. These features are in qualitative agreement with expectations from higher-order perturbative QCD. The author also presents an analysis of the intermittency in rapidity phase space using the method of scaled factorial moments. It is found that both parton cascade and hard-gluon radiations contribute to the growth of the moments by studying the event-shape and jet-topology dependencies. All aspects of the data appear to be reproduced reasonably well by the QCD-based Monte Carlo model.

The last decade has been witness to many exciting and rapid developments in the fields of Nuclear Physics and Intermediate Energy Physics, the interface between Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics. These developments involved to a large extent the sub nucleonic degrees of freedom in nuclei. In deep inelastic lepton scattering from nuclei, for example, it was observed that the quark structure of the nucleon is influenced by the nuclear medium. Also, the spin-dependent structure function of the nucleon was found to differ from sum rules based on SU(3) symmetry, a discrepancy referred to as the "spin crisis". In pion electroproduction at threshold and in the production of pions and other mesons in heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies interesting experimental results have been obtained, which triggered lively theoretical discussions. Furthermore, the search for the quark-gluon plasma phase of hadronic matter, a phase that is supposed to have existed in the first few seconds of the Big Bang, has been intensified. Not only were these developments accompanied by technical developments, such as the building of new experimental facilities, but also extensive theoretical efforts have been directed towards understanding these phenomena. These concerted efforts will hopefully lead to an understanding of the transition from the non-perturbative QCD regime to the perturbative one, in which the quark structure of nucleons is better understood. All of the aforementioned developments occur at a high pace, making it difficult to incorporate them into the courses offered to advanced students.