Muon-Deuteron Deep Inelastic Scattering

Abstract

We have measured deep inelastic muon-deuteron scattering in the range $0.4<\mathrm{}{Q}^2<3.4\mathrm{}$ and $1.6<\mathrm{}\nu <5.6\mathrm{}$ GeV. We have extracted the neutron structure function and find that $\nu {W_2}^n$ differs significantly from $\nu {W_2}^p$, as also found in $e-d$ scattering. To compare $\mu -d$ and $e-d$ scattering we form the ratio $\mathcal{r}\left(Q^2\right)=\frac{{{\left(\nu W_2\right)}_{\mu }}^d}{{{\left(\nu W_2\right)}_e}^d}=N{(1+\frac{Q^2}{{\Lambda }^2})}^{-2\mathrm{}}$ and find $N=0.925\mathrm{}\pm 0.038$ and $\frac{1}{{\Lambda }^2}=-0.019\mathrm{}\pm 0.016$.