Description of inclusive scattering of few-GeV electrons from finite A nuclei and nuclear matter

Abstract

We study $eA$ scattering in a model where the total nuclear structure function is a convolution of components $W_N$ for an isolated nucleon and $W_{\NA}$ for a nucleus composed of point-nucleons. $W_N$ is represented by its elastic and lowest-energy inelastic parts, while $W_{\NA}$ is computed from its asymptotic limit, supplemented by final state interactions due to binary collisions between the knocked-out and core nucleons. $(q/M)W_{\NA}$ per nucleon appears to be practically independent of mass number $A$ and momentum transfer $q$. Consequently, predicted inclusive cross sections per nucleon for given kinematic conditions hardly depend on the target and the same can be extracted from the data. Exceptions are low energy loss regions, where relatively small cross sections are shown to be sensitive to details of the single nucleon momentum distribution and to FSI, involving multiple collisions. The agreement with the data is good.