A light front treatment of the nuclear wave function is developed and applied, using the mean field approximation, to infinite nuclear matter. The nuclear mesons are shown to carry about a third of the nuclear plus momentum $p^{+};$ but their momentum distribution has support only at $p^{+}=0,$ and the mesons do not contribute to nuclear deep inelastic scattering. This zero mode effect occurs because the meson fields are independent of space-time position.

• Received 14 February 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.56.R8