A quark model analysis of the transversity distribution

Abstract

The feasibility of measuring chiral-odd parton distribution functions in polarized Drell-Yan and semi-inclusive experiments has renewed theoretical interest in their study. Models of hadron structure have proven succesful in describing the gross features of the chiral-even structure functions. Similar expectations support our study of the transversity parton distributions in the Isgur-Karl and MIT bag models. We confirm the diverse low x behavior of the transversity and spin structure functions at the experimental scale and show that it is fundamentally a consequence of the different behavior under evolution of these functions. The inequalities of Soffer establish constraints between data and model calculations of the chiral-odd transversity function. The approximate compatibility of our model calculations with these constraints conferes credibility to our estimates.