Measurement of Polarized Valence Quark Distribution Functions using Polarized Proton and Deuteron Targets

Semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering experiments using longitudinally polarized hydrogen (NH3) and deuterium (ND3) targets and a longitudinally polarized electron beam can be used to measure the ratio of the polarized valence quark distribution function to the unpolarized. Semi-inclusive scattering identifies an electron scattering experiment in which the scattered electron and one hadron are detected in the final state. I propose to analyze an electron scattering data set collected using the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) at the Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory. The incident electron energy ranged between 1.6 GeV to 5.7 GeV. The electons impinged on either a polarized proton or deuteron target. This work focuses on a kinematic region where the struck quark carries at least 30% of the nucleons total momentum (xb > 0.3). The leptons scatter mostly from valence quarks in this kinematic region allowing contributions from sea quarks to be neglected. Measurements in this kinematic region are able to distinguish between the predictions made by the hyperfine perturbed constituent quark model (CQM) and perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (pQCD). As a result, the following study can be used to test the validity of the above models describing the structure of the nucleon.