Unfolding of target mass contributions from inclusive proton structure function data

Abstract

We report on the extraction of the target mass contributions to the unpolarized proton structure functions by applying an unfolding procedure to the available world data from charged lepton scattering. The method employed is complementary to recent and future parton distribution function fits including target mass contributions and the results obtained can be utilized to further study perturbative QCD at large Bjorken x and small $Q^2$ . Global fits are performed to both the available $F^2$ and the separated $F_L$ ($F_1$) data which yield excellent descriptions and provides parameterizations of the extracted target mass contributions.