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Title: Coherent contributions of nuclear mesons to electroproduction and the HERMES effect

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/753296· OSTI ID:753296

The authors show that nuclear {sigma}, {omega}, and {pi} mesons can contribute coherently to enhance the electroproduction cross section on nuclei for longitudinal virtual photons at low Q{sup 2} while depleting the cross section for transverse photons. The authors are able to describe recent HERMES inelastic lepton-nucleus scattering data at low Q{sup 2} and small x using photon-meson and meson-nucleus couplings which are consistent with (but not determined by) existing constraints from meson decay widths, nuclear structure, deep inelastic scattering, and lepton pair production data. The authors find that while nuclear-coherent pion currents are not important for the present data, they could be observed at different kinematics. Their model for coherent meson electroproduction requires the assumption of mesonic currents and couplings which can be verified in separate experiments. The observation of nuclear-coherent mesons in the final state would verify their theory and allow the identification of a specific dynamical mechanism for higher-twist processes.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Research (ER) (US)
DOE Contract Number:
AC03-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
753296
Report Number(s):
SLAC-PUB-8366; TRN: US0001916
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: 15 Feb 2000
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English