Nuclear effects in deep inelastic lepton scattering

In this paper, the authors review the data and interpretations of the EMC effect, concluding with a summary of desirable future investigations. They begin with a summary of the relevant kinematic relations and the definition of the invariant structure functions. Data are summarized in Section 3 along with general statements regarding their interpretation. In Section 4, the authors review the spectrum of models proposed to explain the data, concentrating specifically on the rescaling approach and on explanations in terms of nuclear binding. One of their conclusions, expressed in Section 5, is that current data are fully compatible with an interpretation in terms of conventional nuclear binding. There is no hard evidence in these data for new QCD effects such as a change in the confinement size of nucleons. However, more precise data, especially at small values of the Bjorken scaling variable chi (chi<δ0.30 are desirable for future quantitative tests of all interpretations