Inclusive Pi-O Electroproduction In The Deep Inelastic Region

Using 20.5 GeV electrons on protons, we measured inclusive π 0 's (of transverse momentum, p T , from 0 to 1.4 GeV/ c ) produced by virtual photons of energy, ν, from 4 to 16.5 GeV and four-momentum squared, q 2 , from −1.8 to −8.5 (GeV/ c ) 2 . Comparing with charged pion data, we find σ π 0 = 1 2 (σ π + + σ π − ) , supporting the quark model. Photon knockout of a quark is favored as the interpretation of these data because of scaling in z = E π / ν and similarity in z -dependence of other pion production data. Consistent with this interpretation are the dependence of 〈 p T 〉 on q 2 , the azimuthal dependence, and fits to the constituent interchange model. We also observe a possible p T −4 dependence at large | q 2 | over a limited p T range.