Parity-Violating Electron Scattering from the Pion-Correlated Relativistic Fermi Gas

Parity-violating quasielastic electron scattering is studied within the context of the relativistic Fermi gas and its extensions to include the effects of pionic correlations and meson-exchange currents. The work builds on previous studies using the same model; here the part of the parity-violating asymmetry that contains axial-vector hadronic currents is developed in detail using those previous studies and a link is provided to the transverse vector-isovector response. Various integrated observables are constructed from the differential asymmetry. These include an asymmetry averaged over the quasielastic peak, as well as the difference of the asymmetry integrated to the left and right of the peak -- the latter is shown to be optimal for bringing out the nature of the pionic correlations. Special weighted integrals involving the differential asymmetry and electromagnetic cross section, based on the concepts of y-scaling and sum rules, are constructed and shown to be suited to studies of the single-nucleon form factor content in the problem, in particular, to determinations of the isovector/axial-vector and electric strangeness form factors. Comparisons are also made with recent predictions made on the basis of relativistic mean-field theory.Comment: 28 pages, LATeX, 13 figures (tar-compressed postscript files, available from the authors), MIT preprint CTP#222

Superscaling in electron- and neutrino-nucleus scattering

The superscaling properties of electron scattering data are used to extract model-independent predictions for neutrino-nucleus cross sections.Comment: Contibution to NuInt05, 4th international workshop on neutrino-nucleus interaction in the few GeV region, Sept. 26 - 29 2005, Okayama, Japa

Parity-violating longitudinal response

The longitudinal quasielastic parity-violating electron scattering response is explored within the context of a model that builds antisymmetrized RPA-HF correlations on a relativistic Fermi gas basis. The large sensitivity to nuclear dynamics of this observable, found in previous studies where only pionic correlations were included, is shown to survive in the present model where the effects from pion, rho, sigma and omega exchange in a version of the Bonn potential are incorporated. Through an intricate diagrammatic cancellation/filtration mechanism the longitudinal parity-violating response turns out to be close to the one obtained in first-order perturbation theory with the pion alone. Finally, in accord with our previous work, the parity-violating response is seen to display appreciable sensitivity to the electric strangeness content of the nucleon, especially at high momentum transfer.Comment: 13 pages, uses REVTeX and epsfig, 10 postscript figures; a postscript version of the paper is available by anonymous ftp at ftp://carmen.to.infn.it/pub/barbaro/papers/951

Spectral Geometry and One-loop Divergences on Manifolds with Conical Singularities

Geometrical form of the one-loop divergences induced by conical singularities of background manifolds is studied. To this aim the heat kernel asymptotic expansion on spaces having the structure $C_{\alpha}\times \Sigma$ near singular surface $\Sigma$ is analysed. Surface corrections to standard second and third heat coefficients are obtained explicitly in terms of angle $\alpha$ of a cone $C_{\alpha}$ and components of the Riemann tensor. These results are compared to ones to be already known for some particular cases. Physical aspects of the surface divergences are shortly discussed.Comment: preprint DSF-13/94, 13 pages, latex fil

The 2p-2h electromagnetic response in the quasielastic peak and beyond

The contribution to the nuclear transverse response function R_T arising from two particle-two hole (2p-2h) states excited through the action of electromagnetic meson exchange currents (MEC) is computed in a fully relativistic framework. The MEC considered are those carried by the pion and by Delta degrees of freedom, the latter being viewed as a virtual nucleonic resonance. The calculation is performed in the relativistic Fermi gas model in which Lorentz covariance can be maintained. All 2p-2h many-body diagrams containing two pionic lines that contribute to R_T are taken into account and the relative impact of the various components of the MEC on R_T is addressed. The non-relativistic limit of the MEC contributions is also discussed and compared with the relativistic results to explore the role played by relativity in obtaining the 2p-2h nuclear response.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures, revtex4; minor modifications in the discussion of the results, references adde

Inclusive quasielastic scattering of polarized electrons from polarized nuclei

The inclusive quasielastic response functions that appear in the scattering of polarized electrons from polarized nuclei are computed and analyzed for several closed-shell-minus-one nuclei with special attention paid to 39K. Results are presented using two models for the ejected nucleon --- when described by a distorted wave in the continuum shell model or by a plane wave in PWIA with on- and off-shell nucleons. Relativistic effects in kinematics and in the electromagnetic current have been incorporated throughout. Specifically, the recently obtained expansion of the electromagnetic current in powers only of the struck nucleon's momentum is employed for the on-shell current and the effects of the first-order terms (spin-orbit and convection) are compared with the zeroth-order (charge and magnetization) contributions. The use of polarized inclusive quasielastic electron scattering as a tool for determining near-valence nucleon momentum distributions is discussed.Comment: 51 LaTeX pages, 14 Postscript figure

Inelastic electron-nucleus scattering and scaling at high inelasticity

Highly inelastic electron scattering is analyzed within the context of the unified relativistic approach previously considered in the case of quasielastic kinematics. Inelastic relativistic Fermi gas modeling that includes the complete inelastic spectrum - resonant, non-resonant and Deep Inelastic Scattering - is elaborated and compared with experimental data. A phenomenological extension of the model based on direct fits to data is also introduced. Within both models, cross sections and response functions are evaluated and binding energy effects are analyzed. Finally, an investigation of the second-kind scaling behavior is also presented.Comment: 39 pages, 13 figures; formalism extended and slightly reorganized, conclusions extended; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Role of 2p-2h MEC excitations in superscaling

Following recent studies of inclusive electron scattering from nuclei at high energies which focused on two-nucleon emission mediated by meson-exchange currents, in this work the superscaling behavior of such contributions is investigated. Comparisons are made with existing data below the quasielastic peak where at high momentum transfers scaling of the second kind is known to be excellent and scaling of the first kind is good, in the proximity of the peak where both 1p-1h and 2p-2h contributions come into play, and above the peak where inelasticity becomes important and one finds scaling violations of the two kinds.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures; references adde