Nucleon Parton Distributions at Low Normalization Point in the Large N_c Limit

Abstract

At large N_c the nucleon can be viewed as a soliton of the effective chiral lagrangian. This picture of nucleons allows a consistent nonperturbative calculation of the leading-twist parton distributions at a low normalization point. We derive general formulae for the polarized and unpolarized distributions (singlet and non-singlet) in the chiral quark-soliton model. The consistency of our approach is demonstrated by checking the baryon number, isospin and total momentum sum rules, as well as the Bjorken sum rule. We present numerical estimates of the quark and antiquark distributions and find reasonable agreement with parametrizations of the data at a low normalization point. In particular, we obtain a sizeable fraction of antiquarks, in agreement with the phenomenological analysis.