SOFFER'S INEQUALITY

Various issues surrounding a recently proposed inequality among twist-two quark distributions in the nucleon are discussed. We provide a rigorous derivation of the inequality in QCD, including radiative corrections and scale dependence. We also give a more heuristic, but more physical derivation, from which we show that a similar inequality does not exist among twist-three quark distributions. We demonstrate that the inequality does not constrain the nucleon’s tensor charge. Finally we explore physical mechanisms for saturating the inequality, arguing it is unlikely to occur in Nature.