Nuclear medium effects in structure functions of nucleon at moderate $Q^2$

Abstract

Recent experiments performed on inclusive electron scattering from nuclear targets have measured the nucleon electromagnetic structure functions $F_1(x,Q^2)$, $F_2(x,Q^2)$ and $F_L(x,Q^2)$ in $^{12}C$, $^{27}Al$, $^{56}Fe$ and $^{64}Cu$ nuclei. The measurements have been done in the energy region of $1 GeV^2 < W^2 < 4 GeV^2$ and $Q^2$ region of $0.5 GeV^2 < Q^2 < 4.5 GeV^2$. We have calculated nuclear medium effects in these structure functions arising due to the Fermi motion, binding energy, nucleon correlations, mesonic contributions from pion and rho mesons and shadowing effects. The calculations are performed in a local density approximation using relativistic nucleon spectral function which include nucleon correlations. The numerical results are compared with the recent experimental data from JLab and also with some earlier experiments.