How Strange is the Proton? A collection of interesting puzzles

Presented by Prof. Fred Olness, SMU

Although we've been measuring the structure of the proton for decades, the strange content of the proton (until recently) had large uncertainties. Recent data from charged current DIS charm production provide new information on the strange-quark PDF, as well as the difference between the strange quark and anti-quark distributions. We review the various data sets which are included in the global analysis, and examine the influence on the strange PDF. We also review some of the recent theoretical advances implemented to deal with heavy quark production, which is crucial to the proper theoretical treatment of this data. We also note that these results have a direct impact on the QCD corrections to the Paschos-Wolfenstein relation which is used in the precision determination of the Weinberg angle.