Lepton Scattering off Few-Nucleon Systems at Medium and High Energies

The interpretation of recent Jlab experimental data on the exclusive process A(e,e'p)B off few-nucleon systems are analyzed in terms of realistic nuclear wave functions and Glauber multiple scattering theory, both in its original form and within a generalized eikonal approximation. The relevance of the exclusive process 4He(e,e'p)^3H for possible investigations of QCD effects is illustrated.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. Plenary talk given by C. Ciofi degli Atti at the XX European Conference "Few Body Problems in Physics", Pisa, Italy, September 2007. To appear in Few-Body System

Observation of Nuclear Scaling in the A(e,e′)A(e,e^{\prime}) Reaction at xB>x_B>1

The ratios of inclusive electron scattering cross sections of $^4$He, $^{12}$C, and $^{56}$Fe to $^3$He have been measured for the first time. It is shown that these ratios are independent of $x_B$ at Q$^2>$1.4 (GeV/c)$^2$ for $x_B>$ 1.5 where the inclusive cross section depends primarily on the high-momentum components of the nuclear wave function. The observed scaling shows that the momentum distributions at high-momenta have the same shape for all nuclei and differ only by a scale factor. The observed onset of the scaling at Q$^2>$1.4 and $x_B >$1.5 is consistent with the kinematical expectation that two nucleon short range correlations (SRC) are dominate the nuclear wave function at $p_m\gtrsim$ 300 MeV/c. The values of these ratios in the scaling region can be related to the relative probabilities of SRC in nuclei with A$\ge$3. Our data demonstrate that for nuclei with A$\geq$12 these probabilities are 5-5.5 times larger than in deuterium, while for $^4$He it is larger by a factor of about 3.5.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure