This conference will continue the series of QCD-N meetings previously held in Ferrara and Frascati. The main focus will be on recent developments in the investigation of the nucleon structure and related topics. In particular, the transverse and longitudinal spin structure of the nucleon and 3D imaging in both momentum space (transverse-momentum-dependent parton distributions) and in mixed momentum and position space (generalized parton distributions) have gained enormous attention and seen great progress during the last decade. This partially required new approaches from theory and from experiments to obtain correlated information. Semi-inclusive and hard exclusive deep-inelastic scattering are indispensable tools in this endeavor and so is e+e- annihilation, to obtain precision information on hadronization used when probing nucleon structure. Progress has been achieved in the description of the nucleon structure in terms of integrated parton distributions as reflected in the PDF fits using both conventional but also neural-network approaches. Lattice gauge theory has been a complementary source of information on the structure of the nucleon, and in particular recently provided first results on the transverse-momentum structure of the nucleon.
Experimental results on deep-inelastic scattering (inclusive, semi-inclusive, and exclusive), hadron-hadron collisions, and e+e- annihilation will be reviewed. The conference will also emphasize the recent progress in the field from theory, lattice-QCD, and phenomenology. The workshop will be completed by presentations of projects planned all over the world at future high-performance facilities for a deeper understanding of the structure of nucleons.
The conference will be organized in plenary sessions. Young physicists, post-docs and students, are especially encouraged to attend. The conference will be held at the University of the Basque Country in the center of Bilbao, Spain.
Further information and updates will be posted on the QCD-N'12 web site http://tp.lc.ehu.es/QCD-N2012/ and can also be obtained via email to qcd-n2012@ehu.es.
