We present a detailed analysis of the uncertainty in the neutron F2n
structure function extracted from inclusive deuteron and proton deep-inelastic
scattering data. The analysis includes experimental uncertainties as well as
uncertainties associated with the deuteron wave function, nuclear smearing, and
nucleon off-shell corrections. Consistently accounting for the Q^2 dependence
of the data and calculations, and restricting the nuclear corrections to
microscopic models of the deuteron, we find significantly smaller uncertainty
in the extracted F2n/F2p ratio than in previous analyses. In addition to
yielding an improved extraction of the neutron structure function, this
analysis also provides an important baseline that will allow future,
model-independent extractions of neutron structure to be used to examine
nuclear medium effects in the the deuteron.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
