Chiral Light Front Perturbation Theory and the Flavor Dependence of the Light-Quark Nucleon Sea

TL;DR

This paper uses light cone perturbation theory and experimental data to analyze the flavor dependence of the proton's sea quarks, testing the pion cloud hypothesis and providing predictions for future experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of light cone perturbation theory to compute nucleon wave functions with quantified uncertainties, linking non-perturbative effects to flavor asymmetries.

Findings

Experimental data constrains the flavor structure of the nucleon sea.

Predictions are made that can confirm or refute the pion cloud hypothesis.

Future experiments could significantly impact understanding of nucleon structure.

Abstract

The light-quark flavor dependence of the proton sea has been of great interest for many years because of its close connection with non-perturbative effects. One hypothesis is that this dependence arises from the pion cloud of the proton. We apply light cone perturbation theory and experimental constraints to a chiral Lagrangian to compute the relevant Fock-space components of the nucleon wave function with well-defined uncertainties. Existing experimental information regarding the light flavor sea is studied, and predictions for future experimental results are provided. Future experiments have the ability to rule out this hypothesis and have profound implications for understanding the nucleon-nucleon force.