# Comment on “Parton distributions, 𝑑/𝑢, and higher twist effects at high 𝑥”

I. In a recent Letter Yang and Bodek  presented results of a new analysis of proton and deuteron structure functions in which the free neutron structure function, $`F_2^n`$, was extracted at large $`x`$. Knowledge of $`F_2^n`$ is crucial for determining the neutron/proton structure function ratio, whose $`x1`$ limit is sensitive to mechanisms of SU(6) spin-flavor symmetry breaking, and provides one of the fundamental tests of the $`x`$ dependence of parton distributions in perturbative QCD.

Relating nuclear structure functions to those of free nucleons is, however, not straightforward because at large $`x`$ nuclear effects become quite sizable. In particular, omitting nuclear binding or off-shell corrections can introduce errors of up to 50%  in $`F_2^n/F_2^p`$ already at $`x0.75`$. Rather than follow the conventional procedure of subtracting Fermi motion and binding effects in the deuteron via standard two-body wave functions , Yang and Bodek instead extract $`F_2^n`$ using “a model proposed by Frankfurt and Strikman , in which all binding effects in the deuteron and heavy nuclear targets are assumed to scale with the nuclear density” . Here we point out why this approach is ill-defined for light nuclei, and introduces a large theoretical bias into the extraction of $`F_2^n`$ at large $`x`$.

For heavy nuclei the nuclear EMC effect is observed to scale with the nuclear density, $`\rho _A`$ 

$`{\displaystyle \frac{R_{A_1}1}{R_{A_2}1}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _{A_1}}{\rho _{A_2}}},`$ (1)   
where $`R_A=F_2^A/F_2^d`$ and $`\rho _A=3A/(4\pi R_e^3)`$, with $`R_e^2=(5/3)r^2`$ and $`r^2^{1/2}`$ is the nuclear r.m.s. radius. Assuming that an analog of Eq.(1) holds also for $`F_2^A/F_2^N`$ ($`F_2^N=F_2^p+F_2^n`$) one finds

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_2^d}{F_2^N}}`$ $`=`$ $`1+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _d}{(\rho _A\rho _dR_A)}}(R_A1).`$ (2)   
This expression was derived by Frankfurt and Strikman in Ref., where the denominator was further approximated by $`\rho _A\rho _dR_A\rho _A\rho _d`$. It was used in the analysis of the SLAC data , and also referred to by Yang and Bodek , although the explicit formulas used in that analysis are not given. We have checked the numerical values for $`F_2^d/F_2^N`$ in , and they agree with the result one would obtain from Eq.(2) if the densities quoted in  are calculated in terms of charge radii .

Frankfurt and Strikman point out  that from the above expression for $`F_2^d/F_2^N`$ one can extract the free neutron structure function from empirical EMC ratios and the nuclear densities. With the numerical values for $`\rho _A`$ quoted in , one finds then that the EMC effect in $`d`$ is about 25% as large as in <sup>56</sup>Fe , and has the same $`x`$ dependence.

While the correlation of EMC ratios with nuclear densities is empirical for heavy nuclei, application of Eq.(1) to light nuclei, $`A<4`$, for which EMC effect has not yet been determined, is fraught with ambiguities in defining physically meaningful nuclear densities for few-body nuclei. Firstly, the relevant density in Eq.(1) is the nuclear matter density, while in practice $`\rho _A`$ is calculated from the charge radius  — for heavy nuclei the difference is negligible, but for light nuclei it can be significant. Secondly, treating the deuteron as a system with radius $`r^2^{1/2}2`$ fm means that one includes both nucleons in the average density felt by one of them, even though one nucleon obviously cannot influence its own structure. Therefore what one should consider is the probability of one nucleon overlapping with the other, which is simply the deuteron wave function at the origin. This has zero weight, however, so the only sensible definition of mean density for the deuteron is zero. Strictly speaking, the nuclear density extrapolation then predicts no nuclear EMC effect in the deuteron.

In Ref. Frankfurt and Strikman argue that for heavy nuclei the average potential energy is proportional to the average nuclear density, and hence for $`x`$ below 0.5–0.6 (where nuclear Fermi motion is not overwhelming) the nuclear EMC effect should scale with average nuclear density. If one applies the idea from heavy nuclei (where the assumption is known empirically to be reasonable) to the deuteron, one finds that the EMC effect in $`d`$ is $`(F_2^d/F_2^N1)=0.25(F_2^{Fe}/F_2^d1)`$. For light nuclei ($`A=2,3`$) no justification for this assumption is provided, however, and for $`x0.6`$, where nuclear Fermi motion effects become large, Frankfurt and Strikman caution that this estimate is only a qualitative one .

In a reply to our original Comment, Yang and Bodek state that “although the notion of nuclear density for the deuteron may not be very well defined, the value of the nuclear density for deuterium that was used in the SLAC fit yields a similar correction for nuclear binding in the deuteron as the estimate by Frankfurt and Strikman” . As explained above, not only is the notion of nuclear density for the deuteron not very well defined, it is not defined at all.

Moreover, agreement with other calculations  for the magnitude of the deuteron EMC effect does not provide a posteriori justification for using an ill-defined quantity like average nuclear density for the deuteron. One would never think of using a density extrapolation to extract the neutron’s electromagnetic form factors from quasi-elastic scattering on the deuteron or <sup>3</sup>He, for example, and there is no reason to believe this method is any more reasonable for structure functions.

II. The size of the EMC effect in the deuteron cannot be tested directly in any inclusive deep-inelastic scattering experiment on the deuteron, as it requires knowledge of $`F_2^n`$, which itself must be extracted from deuteron data. If, on the other hand, the EMC effect scales with nuclear density even for the deuteron, as assumed in , it must also scale with $`\rho _A`$ for all $`A>2`$. In particular, it must predict the size of the EMC effect in 3-body nuclei. In fact, for $`A=3`$ the nuclear density extrapolation makes quite a dramatic prediction: since the 3-body nuclear densities calculated from the charge radii are $`\rho _{{}_{}{}^{3}He}=0.049`$ fm<sup>-3</sup> and $`\rho _{{}_{}{}^{3}H}=0.068`$ fm<sup>-3</sup>, the EMC effect in <sup>3</sup>H is 40% larger than that in <sup>3</sup>He. This is to be compared with standard many-body calculations in terms of Faddeev wave functions  which predict $`10\%`$ difference between the EMC effects in $`A=3`$ mirror nuclei, see Fig.1. The $`A=3`$ system presents therefore an ideal case for testing the scaling of the nuclear EMC effect to small $`A`$.

III. In Ref., Yang and Bodek compare their $`F_2^d/F_2^N`$ ratio with the relativistic quark model calculation of Ref. (which we denote by “MST”, and which is referred to in  as the “Melnitchouk–Thomas theory”), while attributing to this the empirical extraction of $`F_2^n`$ which was actually carried out in Ref. (which we denote by “MT”). They fail to appreciate the distinction between the MST investigation of relativistic and off-shell effects within a model and the MT analysis of data, so a brief explanation is needed to clarify the confusion.

In the MST model, the objective was to investigate the extent to which relativity and nucleon off-mass-shell effects ($`p^2M^2`$) violate the familiar convolution approximation for nuclear structure functions. To test the significance of these effects, a microscopic model of nucleon structure functions had to be constructed (in the absence of data on off-shell nucleon structure functions!), in order to consistently combine this with a relativistic deuteron wave function  in a covariant calculation. Both the proton and neutron structure functions were parameterized in terms of a simple model for the nucleon-quark-diquark vertex functions, and, in the context of this model, the theoretical $`F_2^d/F_2^N`$ ratio was constructed.

No attempt to extract $`F_2^n`$ from the calculated ratio was made in the MST model. Indeed, if any input neutron structure function is used to construct the theoretical $`F_2^d/F_2^N`$ ratio, clearly the calculated ratio cannot then be applied to draw conclusions about the extracted $`F_2^n`$ — different neutron input would result in a different EMC ratio, and the argument would be cyclic. Therefore comparing the ratio calculated in the MST model with a ratio used in an empirical extraction of $`F_2^n`$ such as in Ref. is rather meaningless.

The least ambiguous procedure is to deconvolute the smeared neutron structure function by iterating the inversion procedure until a convergent, self-consistent solution is obtained. This was done in the MT analysis, in which the only theoretical input was the deuteron wave function.

In Ref., Yang and Bodek criticize the calculated $`F_2^d/F_2^N`$ ratio in the MST model<sup>*</sup><sup>*</sup>* Note that this is incorrectly attributed here to , highlighting the apparent confusion in  between the MST model and the MT analysis. The curve labeled “Melnitchouk-Thomas model” in Fig.1 of  is also incorrectly referenced to  rather than to the MST model . on the grounds that its small-$`x`$ behavior is opposite to that in the EMC ratio for iron. They also assert that the small-$`x`$ behavior reflects some sort of violation of the energy–momentum sum rule in the MST model. The history of this discussion is rather long and illustrious, and for the background we refer the reader to any standard review of the EMC effect (see e.g. Refs. and references therein). Both of these points are actually diversions and irrelevant to our main comment, however, since they were raised as apparent justifications for using the density extrapolation model, we feel a need to address them.

Firstly, the behavior of structure functions at $`x0.2`$ is clearly outside the region of large $`x`$ where the nuclear effects which we are discussing are relevant. The focus of the MST investigation was specifically nuclear effects in the valence quark region at large $`x`$. A realistic description of the sea requires much more sophistication than can be reasonably demanded of any simple valence quark model. Secondly, in any realistic model of nuclear structure which properly accounts for nuclear binding, nucleons alone obviously cannot carry all of the momentum of the nucleus. An analog of demanding that nucleons saturate the momentum sum rule would be to demand that valence quarks alone carry all of the nucleon’s momentum and gluons carry none — in contradiction with experiment. This is the content of the assertion  that the energy–momentum sum rule is not satisfied in the MST model.

The point is that we have never advocated using the MST model to extract the neutron structure function, contrary to the claim made in . As explained above, the least ambiguous $`F_2^n`$ extraction requires employing the iterative procedure for unsmearing the effects of the deuteron wave function, as outlined in , using deuteron and proton data as input. However, even if these points were valid, they would still not be relevant to the issue of $`F_2^n`$ extraction as they refer specifically to the MST model and not to the $`F_2^n`$ extraction in the MT data analysis.

Yang and Bodek in addition claim  that the MST model has not been applied to $`A4`$ nuclei. Since the MST model was relativistic (namely, it included terms beyond order $`v/c`$ in the deuteron wave function), applying it to other nuclei is straightforward once relativistic wave functions are known. To date only non-relativistic wave functions have been calculated for nuclei with $`A4`$. However, since the MST model has a well-defined non-relativistic limit  (namely, omitting deuteron $`P`$-waves, and dropping terms of order $`v^2/c^2`$), it smoothly matches onto previous non-relativistic calculations of the nuclear EMC effect for $`A4`$ . So again, contrary to the assertion by Yang and Bodek , the MST model has indeed been tested for all nuclei and for all cases where wave functions exist .

IV. To summarize, we have demonstrated that the nuclear density model of the EMC effect, extrapolated well beyond its region of validity to the case of the deuteron, is a completely unreliable method of extracting the neutron structure function at large $`x`$, and introduces a large theoretical bias into the extraction procedure. Although a nuclear density fit may be quite useful for heavy nuclei where data exist , its extrapolation to $`A3`$ where there are no data is highly speculative, as illustrated by the difficulty in defining physically meaningful densities for few-body systems.

We believe this issue can only be resolved by measuring the nuclear EMC effect in the deuteron and in $`A=3`$ nuclei. One proposal  would be to simultaneously measure the structure functions of <sup>3</sup>He and <sup>3</sup>H, extracting the $`F_2^n/F_2^p`$ ratio through the cancellation of nuclear effects, which would indirectly determine the EMC effect in the deuteron. Other solutions would be to reconstruct $`F_2^n`$ from the $`d/u`$ ratio extracted from parity-violating $`\stackrel{}{e}p`$ scattering , completely free of nuclear effects, semi-inclusive $`\pi ^\pm `$ production from an <sup>1</sup>H target , or from various charged-current reactions . The above discussion presents a strong case for performing these experiments as soon as possible.

We would like to acknowledge stimulating discussions with G. Petratos concerning the nuclear corrections in $`A=3`$ nuclei. This work was supported by the Australian Research Council.