  We evaluate the frame-independent gluon and charm parton-distribution
functions (PDFs) of the deuteron utilizing light-front quantization and the
impulse approximation. We use a nuclear wave function obtained from solving the
nonrelativistic Schroedinger equation with the realistic Argonne v18 nuclear
force, which we fold with the proton PDF. The predicted gluon distribution in
the deuteron (per nucleon) is a few percent smaller than that of the proton in
the domain x_{bj} = Q^2 / (2 p_N \cdot q) \sim 0.4, whereas it is strongly
enhanced for x_{bj} larger than 0.6. We discuss the applicability of our
analysis and comment on how to extend it to the kinematic limit x_{bj} \to 2.
We also analyze the charm distribution of the deuteron within the same approach
by considering both the perturbatively and non-perturbatively generated
(intrinsic) charm contributions. In particular, we note that the
intrinsic-charm content in the deuteron will be enhanced due to 6-quark
"hidden-color" QCD configurations.
