Investigation of the A dependence in the deep inelastic scattering of leptons and its implications for the interpretation of the EMC effect

It is proposed to determine the A dependence of distortions of the nucleon structure function F2(x) by nuclear matter from the total distortions found in a certain interval (x1, x2). Analysis of data on the deep inelastic scattering of muons and electrons by nuclei reveals that distortions in each of the three regions considered - the shadowing region, the antishadowing region, and the EMC-effect region - are characterized by the same (up to a constant factor) dependence on the mass number A, beginning from A = 4. The available data indicates that distortions tend toward saturation with increasing A. 16 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab