QCD and Hadron Physics

Abstract

This White Paper presents the recommendations and scientific conclusions from the Town Meeting on QCD and Hadronic Physics that took place in the period 13-15 September 2014 at Temple University as part of the NSAC 2014 Long Range Planning process. The meeting was held in coordination with the Town Meeting on Phases of QCD and included a full day of joint plenary sessions of the two meetings. The goals of the meeting were to report and highlight progress in hadron physics in the seven years since the 2007 Long Range Plan (LRP07), and present a vision for the future by identifying the key questions and plausible paths to solutions which should define the next decade. The introductory summary details the recommendations and their supporting rationales, as determined at the Town Meeting on QCD and Hadron Physics, and the endorsements that were voted upon. The larger document is organized as follows. Section 2 highlights major progress since the 2007 LRP. It is followed, in Section 3, by a brief overview of the physics program planned for the immediate future. Finally, Section 4 provides an overview of the physics motivations and goals associated with the next QCD frontier: the Electron-Ion-Collider.