Perturbative Generation of a Strange Quark Asymmetry in the Nucleon

DANIEL DE FLORIAN; STEFANO CATANI; GERMAN RODRIGO; WERNER VOGELSANG

Beijing

Congreso; International Conference on High Energy Physics, ICHEP04; 2004

International Conference on High Energy Physics

We point out that perturbative evolution in QCD at three loops generates a strange-antistrange asymmet rys in the nucleon’s sea just f rom the fact that the nucleon has nonvanishing up and down quark valence densities. The recently computed three- loop splitting funct ions allow for an est imate of this effect. We find that a fairly sizable asymmetry may be generated.