Electron scattering off nuclei

Abstract

Electrons and photons are the ideal probes to study the hadronic structure of nuclei and elementary particles. At the interface of nuclear and particle physics, electro- and photonuclear experiments have provided us with clear evidence for subnuclear effects in nuclei. Such investigations become even more interesting in view of recent puzzling results about the free nucleon, e.g. its strange spin structure in deep inelastic scattering and the low threshold amplitude for photoproduction of neutral pions. The advent of a new generation of high-energy, high-intensity electron accelerators operating with a continuous beam will soon open a new frontier, the direct investigation of correlations by coincidence techniques. Systematic experiments with complete kinematics and separation of the independent structure functions will provide new information on the internal degrees of freedom of hadrons and on their interactions in the nuclear medium.