Meson Cloud of the Nucleon in Polarized Semi-Inclusive Deep-Inelastic Scattering

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of identifying an explicit pionic component of the nucleon through measurements of polarized ${\Delta }^{++}$ baryon fragments produced in deep-inelastic leptoproduction off polarized protons, which may help to identify the physical mechanism responsible for the breaking of the Gottfried sum rule. The pion-exchange model predicts highly correlated polarizations of the ${\Delta }^{++}$ and target proton, in marked contrast with the competing diquark fragmentation process. Measurement of asymmetries in polarized $\Lambda$ production may also reveal the presence of a kaon cloud in the nucleon.

Comments: 23 pages REVTeX, 7 uuencoded figures, accepted for publication in Zeit. Phys. A