How well do we know the neutron structure function?

Abstract

We present a detailed analysis of the uncertainty in the neutron F2n structure function extracted from inclusive deuteron and proton deep-inelastic scattering data. The analysis includes experimental uncertainties as well as uncertainties associated with the deuteron wave function, nuclear smearing, and nucleon off-shell corrections. Consistently accounting for the Q^2 dependence of the data and calculations, and restricting the nuclear corrections to microscopic models of the deuteron, we find significantly smaller uncertainty in the extracted F2n/F2p ratio than in previous analyses. In addition to yielding an improved extraction of the neutron structure function, this analysis also provides an important baseline that will allow future, model-independent extractions of neutron structure to be used to examine nuclear medium effects in the the deuteron.