Kaon quark distribution functions in the chiral constituent quark model

Abstract: We investigate the valence $u$ and $\bar{s}$ quark distribution functions of the $K^+$ meson, $v^{K(u)}(x,Q^2)$ and $v^{K(\bar{s})}(x,Q^2)$, in the framework of the chiral constituent quark model. We judiciously choose the bare distributions at the initial scale to generate the dressed distributions at the higher scale, considering the meson cloud effects and the QCD evolution, which agree with the phenomenologically satisfactory valence quark distribution of the pion and the experimental data of the ratio $v^{K(u)}(x,Q^2)/v^{\pi (u)}(x,Q^2)$. We show how the meson cloud effects affect the bare distribution functions in detail. We find that a smaller $SU(3)$ flavor symmetry breaking effect is observed, compared with results of the preceding studies based on other approaches.