Strangeness asymmetry of the nucleon in the statistical parton model

Abstract

We extend to the strange quarks and antiquarks, the statistical approach of parton distributions and we calculate the strange quark asymmetry $s-\bar{s}$. We find that the asymmetry is small, positive in the low $x$ region and negative in the high $x$ region. In this framework, the polarized strange quarks and antiquarks distributions, which are obtained simultaneously, are found to be both negative for all $x$ values.

8 pages, 7 figures, To appear in Physics Letters B