Determining the strange and antistrange quark distributions of the nucleon

Abstract

The difference between the strange and antistrange quark distributions, $\delta s(x)=s(x)-\sbar(x)$, and the combination of light quark sea and strange quark sea, $\Delta (x)=\dbar(x)+\ubar(x)-s(x)-\sbar(x)$, are originated from non-perturbative processes, and can be calculated using non-perturbative models of the nucleon. We report calculations of $\delta s(x)$ and $\Delta(x)$ using the meson cloud model. Combining our calculations of $\Delta(x)$ with relatively well known light antiquark distributions obtained from global analysis of available experimental data, we estimate the total strange sea distributions of the nucleon.