Pions in Proton Structure and Everywhere Else

TL;DR

This paper explores the role of the pion cloud in proton structure, demonstrating its significance in various phenomena and confirming its effects through detailed calculations aligned with recent experimental data.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of pion cloud effects in proton structure, connecting nuclear physics concepts with high-energy scattering experiments, and confirms their universality.

Findings

Good agreement with SeaQuest data

Pionic effects are universal in proton structure

Pion cloud impacts deep inelastic scattering and Drell-Yan processes

Abstract

The pion cloud is important in nuclear physics and in a variety of low-energy hadronic phenomena. We argue that it is natural to expect it to also be important in lepton-proton deep inelastic scattering and Drell-Yan studies of proton structure. We compute the necessary consequences of the pion cloud in connection with the recent SeaQuest data. The effects are detailed by using the exact kinematics of the experiment. Good agreement with the measurements is obtained. Thus the universality of pionic effects is understood.