The Challenge of the EMC Effect

Abstract

A number of relatively successful quark model descriptions of nuclear matter have recently been developed, based on a mean-field description of non~overlapping nucleons bound by the self-consistent exchange of (1' and w mesons. By combining one such model with a recently developed method of calculating structure functions for the free nucleon, we are able tc. make a microscopic calculation of the structure functions of finite nuclei (in the local density approximation). As well as providing a semi-quantitative understanding of existing data, the model suggests that the impulse approximation, used in many theoretical treatments of nucleon binding, may be quite unreliable.