On the unfolding of the neutron structure functions from the deuteron data
A new method for the extraction of the neutron structure functions from the combined data on the deep inelastic lepton scattering off proton and deuteron targets is proposed. The principal advantages of the method are: (i) only analyticity of the structure functions is assumed, and (ii) the spin-dependent structure functions may be considered as well, whereas the smearing factor method does not work is this case. To make clear the capabilities of the new method, we consider its application to the real data on polarized and unpolarized deuteron.