The neutron structure function, $F_{2n}$, has historically been extracted from measurements of the deuteron structure function, which is limited by our understanding of the nuclear effects on the bound proton and neutron. The MARATHON Collaboration recently extracted $F_{2n}$ from the comparison of ${}^3\mathrm{H}$ and ${}^3\mathrm{He}$ targets, where the nuclear effects are larger but nearly identical, yielding a precise extraction of $F_{2n}/F_{2p}$. To ensure that this comparison is not biased by the specific model of nuclear effects used by MARATHON, we examine a range of models of the nuclear effects to obtain a more conservative, but more model-independent, extraction of $F_{2n}/F_{2p}$ for comparison with deuteron extractions. Even with this approach, the results are precise enough to compare to deuteron extractions, providing new constraints on the nuclear effects in the deuteron and indicating the need for larger nuclear corrections than those included in most models.

Close

PrevNext

View figure in article

• Few-body systems
• Inelastic scattering reactions
• Lepton induced nuclear reactions
• Quantum chromodynamics
• Quark model