The theory of deeply inelastic scattering

The nucleon structure functions probed in deep-inelastic scattering at large virtualities form an important tool to test Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) through precision measurements of the strong coupling constant α s ( M Z 2 ) and the different parton distribution functions. The exact knowledge of these quantities is also of importance for all precision measurements at hadron colliders. During the last two decades very significant progress has been made in performing precision calculations. We review the theoretical status reached for both unpolarized and polarized lepton–hadron scattering based on perturbative QCD.