Superscaling of non-quasielastic electron-nucleus scattering

Abstract

The present study focuses on the superscaling behavior of electron-nucleus cross sections in the region lying above the quasielastic peak, especially the region dominated by electroexcitation of the Δ. Non-quasielastic cross sections are obtained from all available high-quality data for 12C by subtracting effective quasielastic cross sections based on the superscaling hypothesis. These residuals are then compared with results obtained within a scaling-based extension of the relativistic Fermi gas model, including an investigation of violations of scaling of the first kind in the region above the quasielastic peak. A way to potentially isolate effects related to meson-exchange currents by subtracting both impulsive quasielastic and impulsive inelastic contributions from the experimental cross sections is also presented.