New Measurements of the Deuteron to Proton F2 Structure Function Ratio
Abstract
Nucleon structure functions, as measured in lepton-nucleon scattering, have historically provided a critical observable in the study of partonic dynamics within the nucleon. However, at very large parton momenta it is both experimentally and theoretically challenging to extract parton distributions due to the probable onset of non-perturbative contributions and the unavailability of high precision data at critical kinematics. Extraction of the neutron structure and the d-quark distribution have been further challenging due to the necessity of applying nuclear corrections when utilizing scattering data from a deuteron target to extract free neutron structure. However, a program of experiments has been carried out recently at the energy-upgraded Jefferson Lab electron accelerator aimed at significantly reducing the nuclear correction uncertainties on the d-quark distribution function at large partonic momentum. This allows leveraging the vast body of deuterium data covering a large kinematic range to be utilized for d-quark parton distribution function extraction. We present new data from experiment E12-10-002 carried out in Jefferson Lab Hall C on the deuteron to proton cross-section ratio at large BJorken-x. These results significantly improve the precision of existing data, and provide a first look at the expected impact on quark distributions extracted from global parton distribution function fits.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2409.15236,
title = {New Measurements of the Deuteron to Proton F2 Structure Function Ratio},
author = {Debaditya Biswas and Fernando Araiza Gonzalez and William Henry and Abishek Karki and Casey Morean and Sooriyaarachchilage Nadeeshani and Abel Sun and Daniel Abrams and Zafar Ahmed and Bashar Aljawrneh and Sheren Alsalmi and George Ambrose and Whitney Armstrong and Arshak Asaturyan and Kofi Assumin-Gyimah and Carlos Ayerbe Gayoso and Anashe Bandari and Samip Basnet and Vladimir Berdnikov and Hem Bhatt and Deepak Bhetuwal and Werner Boeglin and Peter Bosted and Edward Brash and Masroor Bukhari and Haoyu Chen and Jian-Ping Chen and Mingyu Chen and Michael Eric Christy and Silviu Covrig Dusa and Kayla Craycraft and Samuel Danagoulian and Donal Day and Markus Diefenthaler and Mongi Dlamini and James Dunne and Burcu Duran and Dipangkar Dutta and Rolf Ent and Rory Evans and Howard Fenker and Nadia Fomin and Eric Fuchey and David Gaskell and Thir Narayan Gautam and Jens-Ole Hansen and Florian Hauenstein and A. Hernandez and Tanja Horn and Garth Huber and Mark Jones and Sylvester Joosten and Md Latiful Kabir and Cynthia Keppel and Achyut Khanal and Paul King and Edward Kinney and Michael Kohl and Nathaniel Lashley-Colthirst and Shujie Li and Wenliang Li and Anusha Habarakada Liyanage and David Mack and Simona Malace and Pete Markowitz and John Matter and David Meekins and Robert Michaels and Arthur Mkrtchyan and Hamlet Mkrtchyan and Zae Moore and S. J. Nazeer and Shirsendu Nanda and Gabriel Niculescu and Maria Niculescu and Huong Nguyen and Nuruzzaman Nuruzzaman and Bishnu Pandey and Sanghwa Park and Eric Pooser and Andrew Puckett and Melanie Rehfuss and Joerg Reinhold and Bradley Sawatzky and G. Smith and Holly Szumila-Vance and Arun Tadepalli and Vardan Tadevosyan and Richard Trotta and Stephen Wood and Carlos Yero and Jinlong Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.15236},
year = {2025}
}