Virtual meson cloud of the nucleon and intrinsic strangeness and charm

We have used the Meson Cloud Model (MCM) to calculate the charm and strange antiquark distribution in the nucleon. The resulting curve, in the case of charm, is very similar to the intrinsic charm momentum distribution. This allows us to identify the intrinsic quark distribution with the valence qua rk distribution in the cloud and, at the same time, explains why other MCM calculations fail in reproducing the low a: region data. From the intrinsic strange quark distribution in the nucleon, we have extracted information a bout the relative importance of various intermediate states that should be considered in a loop calculation.