Pion Exchange and the H1 Forward Spectrometer Data

Abstract

We point out that the $\Delta\pi$ component of the nucleon wave function is vital to the interpretation of the recent H1 data for leading baryon production. While the $n/p$ ratio is equal to two with the $N\pi$ component alone, the inclusion of the $\Delta\pi$ component brings this ratio very near to unity, as observed in the experiment. This result demonstrates that pion exchange can not only account for leading neutron but also for a large fraction of the leading proton production.