SPECTATOR SCALING IN SEMIINCLUSIVE INELASTIC LEPTON SCATTERING OFF THE DEUTERON AND THE NEUTRON STRUCTURE-FUNCTION

The energy and angular distributions of slow nucleons produced in semi -inclusive inelastic lepton scattering off the deuteron are investigat ed. It is shown that within the spectator mechanism the semi-inclusive cross section exhibits a peculiar scaling property, the spectator sca ling, which can be used as a model-independent test of the dominance o f the spectator mechanism itself. This property may provide a very int eresting tool to obtain model-independent information on the neutron s tructure function both in the deep-inelastic regime and in the nucleon -resonance production regions.