Valence- and sea-quark distributions in the pion

Abstract

We apply the quark-recombination model to the low-$p_T$ ${\pi }^{+}$ and ${\pi }^{-}$ production data in ${\pi }^{-}p$ interactions at 200 GeV/c. We find that the known quark distributions in the proton can account for the pion production in the backward hemisphere. We then obtain information on the valence- and sea-quark distributions in the pion using the forward-hemisphere pion production data.