We study the helicity distributions of light flavor quark-antiquark ($q bar{q}$) pairs in the nucleon sea. The valence quarks are handled by adopting the light-cone SU(6) quark-spectator-diquark model and the sea $q bar{q}$ pairs are treated from statistical consideration by introducing the helicity suppression factors $l_q(x)$ and $bar l_q(x)$ to parametrize the helicity distributions of q-flavor sea quark and antiquark respectively, while $Delta l_q(x)=l_q(x)-bar l_q(x)$ represents a combined effect of helicity contribution due to sea $q bar{q}$ pairs. From fitting the nucleon polarization asymmetries $A^N_1$ in inclusive deep inelastic scattering processes and the single-spin asymmetries $A^{W^{pm}}_L$ in Drell-Yan type processes, we find a significant asymmetry between the quark and antiquark helicity distributions of the nucleon sea. Therefore the quark-antiquark asymmetry of helicity distributions of nucleon sea $q bar{q}$ pairs, i.e., $Delta q_s(x) eq Delta bar q_s(x)$, plays an important role for a comprehensive understanding of the nucleon spin content.
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