We have extended the application of the recombination model to the production of meson resonances. The $x$ distributions of mesons produced in $\mathrm{pp}$ reactions, including resonances, were found to display certain simple relations, which are independent of specific assumptions about the sea-quark distributions. These predictions can be used both to examine the model and to differentiate between the distributions of strange and nonstrange sea quarks. In the smaller-$x$ region the shapes of meson inclusive distributions sensitively depend on the sea-quark distribution. Because in the pseudoscalar-meson case that is just in the same region where contamination from the resonance decay is serious, we use resonance production to determine directly the sea-quark distributions. If we assume that the sea-quark distributions of all three flavors have the same $x$ dependence, with only the normalization of the strange-quark distribution being suppressed, good agreement with the available data can be achieved. And, with the distribution of sea quarks known, the shape of the inclusive distribution for meson production can then be determined without any further adjustable parameters.

• Received 1 June 1981

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.26.2261