Hadronic Physics: Joint Meeting Heidelberg-Liège-Paris-Rostock; HLPR 2004 (AIP Conference Proceedings / High Energy Physics)

These proceedings (of the eighth meeting in a series) focus on current theoretical problems at the junction of particle and nuclear physics. Topics discussed are the spectroscopy of quark bound states, including the newly observed 5-quark system, and the calculation of the effects of high temperature and/or density on strong interactions (with applications to astrophysics and cosmology). They also cover recent progress in the description of electron-proton scattering at short distances and of elastic and quasi-elastic scattering, and discuss some fundamental questions such as the non-observation of colored states (confinement) and the generation of mass (chiral symmetry breaking).