Quasielastic Versus Inelastic and Deep Inelastic Lepton Scattering in Nuclei at x > 1

Abstract

We have made a thorough investigation of the nuclear structure function W_2A in the region of 0.8 < x < 1.5 and Q^2 < 20 GeV^2, separating the quasielastic and inelastic plus deep inelastic contributions. The agreement with present experimental data is good giving support to the results for both channels. Predictions are made in yet unexplored regions of x and Q^2 to assert the weight of the quasielastic or inelastic channels. We find that at Q^2 < 4 GeV^2 the structure function is dominated by the quasielastic contributions for x < 1.5, while for values of Q^2 > 15 GeV^2 and the range of x studied the inelastic channels are over one order of magnitude bigger than the quasielastic one. The potential of the structure function at x > 1 as a source of information on nuclear correlations is stressed once more.

17 pages, LaTeX, 13 PostScript figures, final version to be published in Nuclear Physics A