The Parton Model

The parton model was introduced in the late 60s by Feynman and Bjorken to address the new data on deep inelastic scattering of electrons on nucleons. The model views the nucleons as made up of point-like constituents and provides a very simple framework for calculating scattering cross sections as well as structure functions for the nucleons. It was very successful in describing a large set of data and also paved the way for particle physicists to later identify the partons with the earlier known quarks of QCD. This report introduces the reader to the parton model and presents the background as well as the most important concepts in deep inelastic scattering.