Bose-Einstein correlations in deep-inelastic scattering from nuclei

Abstract

Bose-Einstein correlations of like-sign charged hadrons produced in deep-inelastic electron and positron scattering arestudied in the HERMES experiment using nuclear targets of $^1$H, $^2$H, $^3$He, $^4$He, N, Ne, Kr, and Xe. A Gaussian approach is usedto parametrize a two-particle correlation function determined from events with at least two charged hadrons of the samesign charge. This correlation function is compared to two different empirical distributions that do not include theBose-Einstein correlations. Clear signals of Bose-Einstein correlations for all target nuclei without a significantvariation with the nuclear target mass are found. Also, no evidence for a dependence on the invariant mass W of thephoton-nucleon system is found when the results are compared to those of previous experiments