Quark and gluon distributions and $\alpha_{s}$ from nucleon structure functions at low $x$

Abstract The Q2 dependence of the structure functions F2p and F2d recently measured by the NMC is compared with the predictions of perturbative QCD at next-to-leading order. Good agreement is observed, leading to accurate determinations of the quark and gluon distributions in the range 0.008 ⩽ × ⩽ 0.5. The strong coupling constant is measured from the low x data; the result agrees with previous determinations.