Role of Vector Mesons in High-Q^2 Lepton-Nucleon Scattering

The possible role played by vector mesons in inclusive deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering is investigated. In the context of the convolution model, we calculate self-consistently the scaling contribution to the nucleon structure function using the formalism of time-ordered perturbation theory in the infinite momentum frame. Our results indicate potentially significant effects only when the vector meson---nucleon form factor is very hard. Agreement with the experimental antiquark distributions, however, requires relatively soft form factors for the $\pi N$, $\rho N$ and $\omega N$ vertices.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures (available upon request); accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.D, ADP-92-197/T12

Meson Cloud of the Nucleon in Polarized Semi-Inclusive Deep-Inelastic Scattering

We investigate the possibility of identifying an explicit pionic component of the nucleon through measurements of polarized $\Delta^{++}$ baryon fragments produced in deep-inelastic leptoproduction off polarized protons, which may help to identify the physical mechanism responsible for the breaking of the Gottfried sum rule. The pion-exchange model predicts highly correlated polarizations of the $\Delta^{++}$ and target proton, in marked contrast with the competing diquark fragmentation process. Measurement of asymmetries in polarized $\Lambda$ production may also reveal the presence of a kaon cloud in the nucleon.Comment: 23 pages REVTeX, 7 uuencoded figures, accepted for publication in Zeit. Phys.

Neutron structure function and inclusive DIS from H-3 and He-3 at large Bjorken-x

A detailed study of inclusive deep inelastic scattering (DIS) from mirror A = 3 nuclei at large values of the Bjorken variable x is presented. The main purpose is to estimate the theoretical uncertainties on the extraction of the neutron DIS structure function from such nuclear measurements. On one hand, within models in which no modification of the bound nucleon structure functions is taken into account, we have investigated the possible uncertainties arising from: i) charge symmetry breaking terms in the nucleon-nucleon interaction, ii) finite Q**2 effects neglected in the Bjorken limit, iii) the role of different prescriptions for the nucleon Spectral Function normalization providing baryon number conservation, and iv) the differences between the virtual nucleon and light cone formalisms. Although these effects have been not yet considered in existing analyses, our conclusion is that all these effects cancel at the level of ~ 1% for x < 0.75 in overall agreement with previous findings. On the other hand we have considered several models in which the modification of the bound nucleon structure functions is accounted for to describe the EMC effect in DIS scattering from nuclei. It turns out that within these models the cancellation of nuclear effects is expected to occur only at a level of ~ 3%, leading to an accuracy of ~ 12 % in the extraction of the neutron to proton structure function ratio at x ~ 0.7 -0.8$. Another consequence of considering a broad range of models of the EMC effect is that the previously suggested iteration procedure does not improve the accuracy of the extraction of the neutron to proton structure function ratio.Comment: revised version to appear in Phys. Rev. C; main modifications in Section 4; no change in the conclusion

How to Determine the Pion Cloud of the Constituent Quark

We calculate the differential cross section for semi-inclusive pion production in electron proton reactions using a model where the physical quark fluctuates with some probability to quark plus pion. The kinematic regions for a determination of this `pion cloud' are evaluated.Comment: 28 pages, including 10 figures; gzipped, uuencoded postscrip

The Nucleon's Virtual Meson Cloud and Deep Inelastic Lepton Scattering

We address the question whether the nucleon's antiquark sea can be attributed entirely to its virtual meson cloud and, in essence, whether there exists a smooth transition between hadronic and quark-gluon degrees of freedom. We take into account contributions from $\pi$ and $K$ mesons and compare with the nucleon's antiquark distributions which serve as a non-perturbative input to the QCD evolution equations. We elucidate the different behavior in the flavor singlet and non-singlet channels and study the dependence of our results on the scale $Q^2$. The meson-nucleon cut-offs that we determine give not only an indication on the size of the region within which quarks are confined in a nucleon, but we find that the scale of these form factors is closely related to the four-momentum transfer, $Q^2$, where gluons are resolved by a high energy probe, and that large meson loop momenta, $|{\bf k}| \approx 0.8$ GeV, contribute significantly to the sea quark distributions. While the agreement of our calculations with data-based parametrizations is satisfactory and scale independent for the flavor breaking share of the nucleon's antiquark sea, the flavor singlet component is quite poorly described. This hints the importance of gluon degrees of freedom.Comment: 34 pages, RevTeX, 6 figures optionally included using epsfig.st