Tortuous ways to the extraction of neutron observables from inclusive lepton scattering

TL;DR

This paper examines new and old electron scattering data to extract neutron observables, revealing discrepancies and challenges in accurately determining neutron form factors and structure functions from inclusive scattering measurements.

Contribution

The study highlights the difficulties in extracting neutron observables from inclusive electron scattering data and compares different data sets and theoretical approaches.

Findings

Reasonable agreement in total cross sections across targets.

Serious discrepancies in Quasi-Elastic components.

Challenges in extracting neutron form factors from new data.

Abstract

We analyze new JLAB data for inclusive electron scattering on various targets. Computed and measured total inclusive cross sections in the range $0.3\lesssim x\lesssim 0.95$ show on a logarithmic scale reasonable agreement for all targets. However, closer inspection of the Quasi-Elastic components bares serious discrepancies. EMC ratios which may contain less systematic errors fare the same. The above observations for the new data do not enable the extraction of the magnetic form factor (FF) $G_M^n$ and the Structure Function (SFs) $F_2^n$ of the neutron, although the application of exactly the same analysis to older data had been successful. We add to the above analysis older CLAS collaboration on $F_2^D$. Removing some scattered points, it appears possible to obtain the above mentioned neutron information. We compare our results with others from alternative sources. Particular attention is paid to the A=3 iso-doublet. Present data exist only for $^3$He, but the available input and charge symmetry also enable computations for $^3$H. Their average is the computed iso-scalar part and is compared with the empirical modification of $^3$He towards a fictitious A=3 iso-singlet.