Deuteron and neutron structure functions and the effect of relativistic Fermi motion

The deep-inelastic deuteron structure function (SF) F₂^D in the covariant approach in the light-cone variables is considered. The neutron SF F₂ⁿ is extracted from the deuteron and proton experimental data taking into account the relativistic deuteron model and the parametrization of F₂ⁿ is obtained. The effect of the relativistic Fermi motion is estimated to be 6% at x0.7. The extracted neutron SF is used to verify the Gottfried sum rule. It is shown that the violation of the flavour symmetry of the sea can be large with increasing Q².