Pionic effects in quasielastic electron scattering

Abstract

Quasielastic electron scattering from nuclei at high momentum transfer and energy loss is approached using a model which incorporates specific classes of effects arising from the exchange of pions between nucléons in the nucleus. Building on the (purely nucleonic) relativistic Fermi gas responses, pionic effects in 1p1h correlation and meson exchange current contributions to the total responses are studied. The extent to which current conservation is satisfied when such effects are included is examined. In applying the model to predictions for a typical nucleus, consequences for the Coulomb sum rule and y-scaling are also discussed.