QCD FITS TO NEUTRINO-IRON STRUCTURE FUNCTIONS AT NUTEV

This thesis presents a new determination of $Lambda_{QCD}$ from Next-to-Leading Order QCD fits to the $Q^2$ dependence of neutrino-ironstructure functions. This is the first measurement of $Lambda_{QCD}$ which uses a theoretical model that fully accounts for heavy quark production.Compared with previous neutrino measurements,the result has improved understandingof the largest systematic uncertainties onthe muon and hadron energy scales. These improvements lead to one of the most precise determination of $alpha_S$ atmoderate $Q^2$.NuTeV is a neutrino-iron deep inelastic scattering (DIS) experiment that collected data during 1996-97 at Fermilab. The key features of NuTeV include its sign-selected beam whichproduced separate high purity neutrino andantineutrino beams, and its continuous calibration beam which enabled NuTeV to considerably improve the knowledge of energy scales whichhave dominated uncertainties in the previousmeasurements