On the Determination of Spin-Dependent Parton Distributions in Semi-Inclusive Deep Inelastic Scattering

New polarized fragmentation functions are introduced and justified, in addition to those conventional ones assumed to be independent of the helicity of the parent parton. It is demonstrated that due to our present ignorance concerning these new parton-spin dependent leading-twist fragmentation functions, it is impossible to utilize current experiments on spin-dependent semi-inclusive deep inelastic lepton nucleon scattering to disentangle the separate polarized parton distributions.Comment: 8 pages, minor changes, 1 figure adde

Parton evolution in the fixed flavor factorization scheme

It is argued that while the scale dependence of the parton distributions in the fixed flavor factorization scheme is governed by three active flavors, the scale dependence of the running coupling should nevertheless be better governed by a variable number of active flavors.Comment: 5 page

Phenomenology of the Flavor-Asymmetry in the Light-Quark Sea of the Nucleon

A phenomenological ansatz for the flavor-asymmetry of the light sea distributions of the nucleon, based on the Pauli exclusion principle, is proposed. This ansatz is compatible with the measured flavor-asymmetry of the unpolarized sea distributions, $\bar{d}>\bar{u}$, of the nucleon. A prediction for the corresponding polarized flavor-asymmetry is presented and shown to agree with predictions of (chiral quark--soliton) models which successfully reproduced the flavor-asymmetry of the unpolarized sea.Comment: 5 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures, uses epsfi

The Photon Structure Function at Small-x

It is shown that recent small-x measurements of the photon structure function F_2^{\gamma}(x,Q^2) by the LEP-OPAL collaboration are consistent with parameter-free QCD predictions at all presently accessible values of Q^2.Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX, 2 figure

Probing the Perturbative NLO Parton Evolution in the Small-xx Region

A dedicated test of the perturbative QCD NLO parton evolution in the very small-$x$ region is performed. We find a good agreement with recent precision HERA-data for $F_2^p(x,Q^2)$, as well as with the present determination of the curvature of $F_2^p$. Characteristically, perturbative QCD evolutions result in a positive curvature which increases as $x$ decreases. Future precision measurements in the very small $x$-region, $x<10^{-4}$, could provide a sensitive test of the range of validity of perturbative QCDComment: Revised version, to appear in EPJ

Dynamical QCD Predictions for Ultrahigh Energy Neutrino Cross Sections

Neutrino-nucleon total cross sections for neutrino energies up to ultrahigh energies (UHE), E_\nu=10^12 GeV, are evaluated within the framework of the dynamical (radiative) parton model. The expected uncertainties of these predictions do not exceed the level of about 20 % at the highest energies where contributions of parton distributions in the yet unmeasured region around x\simeq 10^-8 to 10^-9 are non-negligible. This is far more accurate than estimated uncertainties of about 2^+-1 due to ad hoc extrapolations of parton distributions to x<10^-5 required for calculating UHE cosmic neutrino event rates.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures, uses epsfig and amssymb styl

The Polarized and Unpolarized Photon Content of the Nucleon

The equivalent photon content of polarized and unpolarized nucleons (protons, neutrons), utilized in Weizs\"acker--Williams approximations, are presented. For this purpose a new expression for the elastic photon component of a polarized nucleon is derived. The inelastic photon components are obtained from the corresponding momentum evolution equations subject to the boundary conditions of their vanishing at some low momentum scale. The resulting photon asymmetries, important for estimating cross section asymmetries in photon induced subprocesses are also presented for some typical relevant momentum scales.Comment: LaTeX, 16 pages, 6 figure

Radiatively Generated Isospin Violations in the Nucleon and the NuTeV Anomaly

Predictions of isospin asymmetries of valence and sea distributions are presented which are generated by QED leading ${\cal{O}}(\alpha)$ photon bremsstrahlung effects. Together with isospin violations arising from nonperturbative hadronic sources (such as quark and target mass differences) as well as with even a conservative contribution from a strangeness asymmetry ($s\neq \bar{s}$), the discrepancy between the large NuTeV `anomaly' result for $\sin^2\theta_W$ and the world average of other measurements is removed.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure