A New Extraction of Neutron Structure Functions from Existing Inclusive DIS Data

Abstract

A recent reanalysis of world proton and deuteron structure function measurements showed that a significant amount of the apparent model dependence in the extraction of the neutron structure function was related to inconsistencies between the kinematics of the data and those assumed for the calculation, suggesting that the true model dependence is smaller than commonly believed. We present a detailed comparison of the neutron structure function as extracted using different models, with care taken to ensure that all other aspects of the comparison are done consistently. The neutron structure function is extracted using a fit to these data evaluated at fixed Q^2_0=16 GeV^2. We compare the results obtained using a variety of N--N potentials and deuteron binding models to determine the model dependence of the extraction. As in the recent extraction, F_{2n}/F_{2p} falls with x with no sign of plateau and follows the low edge of the wide range of earlier F_{2n} extractions. The model-dependent uncertainty in F_{2n}/F_{2p} is shown to be considerably smaller than previously believed, particularly at large-x.