Light front nuclear theory

Abstract

High energy scattering experiments involving nuclei are typically analyzed in terms of light front variables. The desire to provide realistic,relativistic wave functions expressed in terms of these variables led me to try to use light front dynamics to compute nuclear wave functions. Here calculations of infinite nuclear matter in the mean field approximation and also in a light front version of Bruckner theory which includes NN correlations are reviewed. Applications of these wave functions to nuclear deep inelastic scattering and Drell-Yan processes are discussed. We find that relativistic mean field theory produces no EMC binding effect.