Thermodynamical analysis of the EMC effect

Assuming that the sea quark distribution vanishes for x > 0.3, we analyse the F₂^Fe(x, Q²) and F₂^D(x, Q²) structure functions measured by the European Muon Collaboration in the framework of a thermodynamical model of the valence quarks. The experimental ratio $\text{F}{}_2{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>Fe</mtext>}}\text{(x)}\text{F}{}_2{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>D</mtext>}}\text{(x)}$ is well reproduced over the whole x range by the ratio of two valence quark distributions at different temperatures T and confinement volumes V. We obtain T_D?T_Fe≈3 MeV and $\text{V}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>Fe</mtext>}}\text{V}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>D</mtext>}}\text{≈ 1.3}$.