Pion parton distribution function in the valence region

Abstract

The parton distribution function of the pion in the valence region is extracted in a next-to-leading order analysis from Fermilab E-615 pionic Drell-Yan data. The effects of the parametrization of the pion's valence distributions are examined. Modern nucleon parton distributions and nuclear corrections were used and possible effects from higher twist contributions were considered in the analysis. In the next-to-leading order analysis, the high-x dependence of the pion structure function differs from that of the leading order analysis, but not enough to agree with the expectations of pQCD and Dyson-Schwinger calculations.