We present a complete set of formulas for longitudinal momentum distribution functions (splitting functions) of mesons in the nucleon. It can be applied in the framework of convolution formalism to the deep-inelastic structure functions (quark distributions) of the nucleon viewed as a system composed of virtual 'mesons' and 'baryons'. Pseudoscalar and vector mesons as well as octet and decuplet baryons are included. In contrast to many approaches in the literature the present approach ensures charge and momentum conservation by the construction. We present not only spin averaged splitting functions but also helicity dependent ones, which can be used to study the spin content of the nucleon. The cut-off parameters of the underlying form factors for different vertices are determined from high-energy particle production data. We find an universal cut-off parameter for processes involving octet

We suggest a method of determination of the pion structure function down to x ≃ 10 −4 based on semi-exclusive deep inelastic scattering off protons.The idea is to exploit the nonperturbative πN and π∆ Fock components of the nucleon, which contribute significantly to deep inelastic scattering and dominate the fragmentation of protons into fast neutrons and deltas. The intrinsic factorization properties of the semi-exclusive cross section give a good test for the validity of this approach.Typeset using REVT E X 1

We compute the full x -dependence of the proton and neutron spin structure functions in the MIT bag model, including the effect of gluon exchange and the meson cloud. Impressive agreement is found for x larger than 0.1, where polarised gluons are not expected to play a significant role.

The excitation of the proton into undetected multiparticle states (double diffraction dissociation) is an important background to single diffractive deep-inelastic processes ep →We present estimates of the admixture of the double diffraction dissociation events in all diffractive events. We find that in the J/Ψ photoproduction, electroproduction of the ρ 0 at large Q 2 and diffraction dissociation of real and virtual photons into high mass states X the contamination of the double diffraction dissociation can be as large as ∼ 30%, thus affecting substantially the experimental tests of the pomeron exchange in deep inelastic scattering at HERA. We discuss a possibility of tagging the double diffraction dissociation by neutrons observed in the forward neutron calorimeter. We present evaluations of the spectra of neutrons and efficiency of neutron tagging based on the experimental data for diffractive processes in the proton-proton collisions.