Semi-inclusive electron scattering off the deuteron and the neutron structure functions

The detection of slow nucleons in semi-inclusive electron scattering processes off the deuteron, 2H(e, e'N)X, is a very promising tool for the extraction of model-independent information on the neutron structure function F2n(x, Q**2). The key point is the occurrence of a peculiar scaling property of the semi-inclusive cross section, which holds in the deep-inelastic regime as well as in the nucleon-resonance production regions. Moreover, the possibility to get unique information on the neutron asymmetry A1n(x, Q**2) from polarised 2H_pol(e_pol, e'N)X processes is illustrated.