Neutron valence structure from nuclear deep inelastic scattering

Abstract

Mechanisms of spin-flavor SU(6) symmetry breaking in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) are studied via an extraction of the free neutron structure function from a global analysis of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) data on the proton and on nuclei from $A=2$ (deuterium) to 208 (lead). Modification of the structure function of nucleons bound in atomic nuclei (known as the EMC effect) are consistently accounted for within the framework of a universal modification of nucleons in short-range correlated (SRC) pairs. Our extracted neutron-to-proton structure function ratio $F_2^n/F_2^p$ becomes constant for $x_B\ge 0.6$, equalling $0.47\pm 0.04$ as $x_B\to 1$, in agreement with theoretical predictions of perturbative QCD and the Dyson Schwinger equation, and in disagreement with predictions of the Scalar Diquark dominance model. We also predict $F_2^{{}^3\mathrm{He}}/F_2^{{}^3\mathrm{H}}$, recently measured, yet unpublished, by the MARATHON collaboration, the nuclear correction function that is needed to extract $F_2^n/F_2^p$ from $F_2^{{}^3\mathrm{He}}/F_2^{{}^3\mathrm{H}}$, and the theoretical uncertainty associated with this extraction.

arXiv commentPublished in PRL. 6 pages, 4 figures and on-line supplementary materials

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