Strangeness and Hadron Structure

The nucleon wave function may contain a significant component of s̄s pairs, according to several measurements including the π-nucleon σ term, charm production and polarization effects in deep-inelastic scattering. In addition, there are excesses of φ production in LEAR and other experiments, above predictions based the naive Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka rule, that may be explained if the nucleon wave function contains a polarized s̄s component. This model also reproduces qualitatively data on Λ polarization in deep-inelastic neutrino scattering. The strange component of the proton is potentially important for other physics, such as the search for astrophysical dark matter.