Hadronic Probes of the Polarized Intrinsic Strangeness of the Nucleon

TL;DR

This paper explores the evidence for an intrinsic polarized strange-antistrange quark component in the nucleon, interpreting experimental violations of the OZI rule and proposing further tests for this model.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the polarized strangeness component in the nucleon and discusses new experimental data supporting this interpretation.

Findings

Evidence for intrinsic polarized strangeness in the nucleon

Interpretation of OZI rule violations in terms of strangeness content

Proposals for further experimental tests

Abstract

We have previously interpreted the various large apparent violations of the naive Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka (OZI) rule found in many channels in $\bar{p}p$ annihilation at LEAR as evidence for an intrinsic polarized $\bar{s}s$ component of the nucleon wave function. The model is further supported by new data from LEAR and elsewhere. Here we discuss in more detail the possible form of the $\bar{s}s$ component of the nucleon wave function, interpret the new data and clarify the relative roles of strangeness shake-out and rearrangement, discuss whether alternative interpretations are still allowed by the new data, and propose more tests of the model.