Applications of quark-hadron duality in the F-2 structure function

Inclusive electron-proton and electron-deuteron inelastic cross sections have been measured at Jefferson Lab (JLab) in the resonance region, at large Bjorken x, up to 0.92, and four-momentum transfer squared Q2 up to 7.5 GeV2 in the experiment E00-116. These measurements are used to extend to larger x and Q2 precision, quantitative, studies of the phenomenon of quark-hadron duality. Our analysis confirms, both globally and locally, the apparent " violation" of quark-hadron duality previously observed at a Q2 of 3.5 GeV2 when resonance data are compared to structure function data created from CTEQ6M and MRST2004 parton distribution functions (PDFs). More importantly, our new data show that this discrepancy saturates by Q2~4 GeV2, becoming Q2 independent. This suggests only small violations of Q2 evolution by contributions from the higher-twist terms in the resonance region that is confirmed by our comparisons to ALEKHIN and ALLM97. We conclude that the unconstrained strength of the CTEQ6M and MRST2004 PDFs at large x is the major source of the disagreement between data and these parametrizations in the kinematic regime we study and that, in view of quark-hadron duality, properly averaged resonance region data could be used in global quantum chromodynamics fits to reduce PDF uncertainties at large x. © 2009 The American Physical Society