The neutron spin structure function from the deuteron data in the resonance region

Nuclear effects in the spin-dependent structure function g₁ of the deuteron are studied in the kinematics of future experiments at CEBAF (ν ≤ 3 GeV, Q² ≤2 GeV ²). The magnitude of nuclear effects is found to be significantly larger than the one occurring in deep inelastic scattering (ν → ∞, Q² → ∞). A possibility to measure the neutron structure functions in the CEBAF experiments with deuterium is analysed. It is found that disregarding or improperly treating nuclear effects in the region of nucleon resonances would lead to the “extraction” of an unreliable function. A procedure aimed at correctly extracting the neutron structure function from the deuterium data is illustrated and conclusions about the experimental study of the Q² dependence of the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn Sum Rule for the neutron are drawn.