Phenomenological Relation between Distribution and Fragmentation Functions

Abstract

We study the relation between the quark distribution function q(x) and the fragmentation function D_q(z) based on a general form D_q(x) = C(z)z^{alpha}q(z) for valence and sea quarks. By adopting two known parametrizations of quark distributions for the proton, we find three simple options for the fragmentation functions that can provide a good description of the available experimental data on proton production in e^+ e^- inelastic annihilation. These three options support the revised Gribov-Lipatov relation D_q(z) = z q(z) at z --> 1, as an approximate relation for the connection between distribution and fragmentation functions. The three options differ in the sea contributions and lead to distinct predictions for antiproton production in the reaction p+p --> p-bar+X, thus they are distinguishable in future experiments at RHIC-BNL.