PROTON STRUCTURE FUNCTIONS FROM CHIRAL DYNAMICS AND QCD CONSTRAINTS

Abstract

The spin fractions and deep inelastic lepton structure functions of the proton are analyzed using chiral field theory involving Goldstone bosons. A detailed comparison with recent chiral models sheds light on their successful description of the spin fractions of the proton as being due to neglecting helicity nonflip chiral transitions. This approximation is valid for zero mass but not for constituent quarks. Since the chiral spin fraction models with the pure spin-flip approximation reproduce the measured spin fractions of the proton, axialvector constituent-quark-Goldstone boson couplings are found to be inconsistent with the proton spin data. Initial quark valence distributions are then constructed using quark counting constraints at Bjorken x→1 and Regge behavior at x→0. Sea quark distributions predicted by chiral field theory on this basis have the correct order of magnitude and shape. The spin fractions also agree with the data.