A measurement of the F2 structure function of the neutron and the proton

Presented in this thesis are the results and conclusions from one period of data taking by the NMC experiment at CERN. This period was conducted with a muon beam energy of 280 GeV and covered the kinematics range 0.002 ≤ xBj ≤ 0.800 and 0.5 (GeV/c)2 ≤ Q2 ≤ 200 (GeV/c)2. This experiment made simultaneous high luminosity deep inelastic muon scattering measurements on liquid hydrogen and liquid deuterium targets. These measurements of the structure functions F2p and F2d, of F2n - F2p, of the ratio F2n/F2p and their Q2 dependence are used to test the Gottfried sum rule and the assumption of a flavor symmetric open-quotes seaclose quotes; to determine the onset of shadowing in deuterium; to determine the difference Rd-Rp between the deuteron and the proton of R, the ratio of longitudinally and transversely polarized absorption cross sections for the virtual photons