Chiral-odd distribution functions in the chiral quark soliton model

The recent measurements of azimuthal single spin asymmetries by the HERMES Collaboration has opened up new possibility to measure chiral-odd distribut ion functions through semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scatterings. Here, pred ictions are given for the twist-2 and twist-3 chiral-odd distribution funct ions of the nucleon within the framework of the chiral quark soliton model, with full inclusion of the vacuum polarization effects as well as the subl eading 1/N-c corrections. The importance of the vacuum polarization effects is demonstrated by showing that the so-called Soffer inequality holds not only for the quark distributions but also for the antiquark ones. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.