The EMC Effect and High Momentum Nucleons in Nuclei

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent progress in understanding the EMC effect, highlighting the role of high-momentum nucleons and short-range correlations, and presents a convolution model that explains the data through modifications of nucleons in nuclei.

Contribution

It introduces a new data basis using the Bjorken variable and discusses a convolution model linking the EMC effect to nucleon modifications, applicable to both mean-field and correlated nucleons.

Findings

Linear relation between short-range correlations and the EMC effect.

Both mean-field and correlated nucleon modifications successfully describe EMC data.

New data basis using the Bjorken variable enhances analysis.

Abstract

Recent developments in understanding the influence of the nucleus on deep-inelastic structure functions, the EMC effect, are reviewed. A new data base which expresses ratios of structure functions in terms of the Bjorken variable $x_A=AQ^2/(2M_A q_0)$ is presented. Information about two-nucleon short-range correlations from experiments is also discussed and the remarkable linear relation between short-range correlations and teh EMC effect is reviewed. A convolution model that relates the underlying source of the EMC effect to modification of either the mean-field nucleons or the short-range correlated nucleons is presented. It is shown that both approaches are equally successful in describing the current EMC data.