Quark recombination in deuteron fragmentation

Low-P _T production off deuteron in the fragmentation region is studied on the basis of a six-quark picture of deuteron. It is argued that all the six valence quarks participate equally in the hadronization processes associated with meson and baryon productions. Thex-distribution of the inclusive cross sections is studied in the framework of a quark recombination model. Fit with experimental data leads to a determination of the valence and sea quark distributions in deuteron. Probabilistic arguments applied to a general recombination picture are shown to lead to some experimentally verifiable constraints on baryon multiplicities. Possibilities of determining the various recombination probabilities are also discussed.