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# Search for 𝑇 and 𝐶𝑃 Violation in 𝐵⁰-𝐵̄⁰ Mixing with Inclusive Dilepton Events

BABAR-PUB-01/20

SLAC-PUB-9149

The BABAR Collaboration

## Abstract

We report the results of a search for $`T`$ and $`CP`$ violation in $`B^0`$-$`\overline{B}^0`$ mixing using an inclusive dilepton sample collected by the BABAR experiment at the PEP-II $`B`$ Factory. The asymmetry between $`\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{}^{}\mathrm{}^{}`$ events allows us to compare the probabilities for $`\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0}B^0`$ and $`B^0\overline{B}^0`$ oscillations and thus probe $`T`$ and $`CP`$ invariance. Using a sample of 23 million $`B\overline{B}`$ pairs, we measure a same-sign dilepton asymmetry of $`A_{T/CP}=(0.5\pm 1.2(\mathrm{stat})\pm 1.4(\mathrm{syst}))\%`$. For the modulus of the ratio of complex mixing parameters $`p`$ and $`q`$, we obtain $`|q/p|=0.998\pm 0.006(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.007(\mathrm{syst})`$.

preprint: BABAR-PUB-01/20preprint: SLAC-PUB-9149

Since the first observation of $`CP`$ violation in 1964 CP64 , the kaon system has provided many other results probing the $`CPT`$ and $`T`$ discrete symmetries CPLEAR99 . Beyond the investigation of $`CP`$ violation through the measurements of the unitarity triangle angles $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$, the BABAR experiment can investigate $`T`$ and $`CP`$ violation purely in mixing.

The physical states (solutions of the complex effective Hamiltonian for the $`B^0`$-$`\overline{B}^0`$ system) can be written as

$$|B_{L,H}^0=p|B^0\pm q|\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0}$$

where $`p`$ and $`q`$ are complex mixing parameters with the normalization $`|p|^2+|q|^2=1`$.

The $`CPT`$ invariant asymmetry, $`A_{T/CP}`$, between the two oscillation probabilities $`P(\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0}B^0)`$ and $`P(B^0\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0})`$ probes both $`T`$ and $`CP`$ symmetries and can be expressed in terms of $`p`$ and $`q`$:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill A_{T/CP}& =\frac{P(\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0}B^0)P(B^0\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0})}{P(\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0}B^0)+P(B^0\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0})}\hfill \\ & =\frac{1|q/p|^4}{1+|q/p|^4}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
Standard Model calculations SM  predict the size of this asymmetry to be at or below $`10^3`$. Therefore, a large measured value could be an indication of new physics.

Inclusive dilepton events representing 4% of all $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)B\overline{B}`$ decays provide a very large sample with which to study $`T`$ and $`CP`$ violation in mixing. The flavor of each $`B`$ meson is tagged by the charge of the lepton. Assuming $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$ and $`CP`$ invariance in the direct ($`b\mathrm{}`$) semileptonic decay process, the asymmetry between same-sign lepton pairs, $`\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{}^{}\mathrm{}^{}`$, allows a comparison of the two oscillation probabilities $`P(\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0}B^0)`$ and $`P(B^0\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0})`$. The asymmetry $`A_{T/CP}`$ for direct same-sign dileptons is time independent. However, in this analysis, the time difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ between the two $`B`$ meson decays is used to discriminate the direct leptons from the cascade leptons produced in ($`bc\mathrm{}`$) transitions.

The measurement of $`A_{T/CP}`$ reported here is performed using events collected by the BABAR detector BaBarNIM01  from $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy $`B`$ Factory between October 1999 and October 2000. The integrated luminosity of this sample is 20.7 $`\text{ fb}^1`$ recorded at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ resonance (“on-resonance”) and 2.6 $`\text{ fb}^1`$ recorded about 40 $`\mathrm{MeV}`$ below the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ resonance (“off-resonance”). $`B\overline{B}`$ pairs from the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ decay move along the high-energy beam direction ($`z`$) with a nominal Lorentz boost $`\beta \gamma =0.55`$.

Lepton candidates must have at least 12 hits in the drift chamber (DCH), at least one $`z`$-coordinate hit in the silicon vertex tracker (SVT), and a momentum in the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ center-of-mass system (CMS) between 0.7 and 2.3 $`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$. Electrons are selected by requirements on the ratio of the energy deposited in the electromagnetic calorimeter (EMC) and the momentum measured in the DCH, on the lateral shape of the energy deposition in the calorimeter, and on the specific ionization density measured in the DCH. Muons are identified through the energy released in the calorimeter, as well as the strip multiplicity, track continuity and penetration depth in the instrumented flux return (IFR). Lepton candidates are rejected if they are consistent with a kaon or proton hypothesis according to the Cherenkov angle measured in the detector of internally reflected Cherenkov light (DIRC) or to the ionization density measured in the DCH. The electron and muon selection efficiencies are about 92% and 75%, with pion misidentification probabilities around 0.2% and 3%, respectively.

Non-$`B\overline{B}`$ events are suppressed by requiring the ratio of second to zeroth order Fox-Wolfram moments FW  to be less than 0.4. In addition, the residual contamination from radiative Bhabha and two-photon events is reduced by requiring the squared invariant mass of the event to be greater than 20 GeV$`{}_{}{}^{2}/c^4`$, the event aplanarity to be greater than 0.01, and the number of charged tracks to be greater than four. Electrons from photon conversions are identified and rejected with a negligible loss of efficiency for signal events. Leptons from $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi (2S)`$ decays are identified by pairing them with other oppositely-charged candidates of the same-lepton species, selected with looser criteria. We reject the whole event if any combination has an invariant mass within $`3.037<M(\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})<3.137\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$ or $`3.646<M(\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})<3.726\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$.

To minimize the wrong flavor tags due to leptons from cascade charm decays, we use a neural network algorithm that combines five discriminating variables. These are calculated in the CMS (see Fig. 1) and are the momenta of the two leptons with highest momentum, $`p_1^{}`$ and $`p_2^{}`$, the total visible energy $`E_{tot}`$, the missing momentum $`p_{miss}`$ of the event, and the opening angle between the leptons, $`\theta _{12}`$. The first two variables, $`p_1^{}`$ and $`p_2^{}`$, are very powerful in discriminating between direct and cascade leptons. The last variable, $`\theta _{12}`$, efficiently removes direct-cascade lepton pairs coming from the same $`B`$ and further rejects photon conversions. Some additional discriminating power is also provided by the other two variables. In order to be insensitive to the Monte Carlo, the fraction of cascade leptons is determined from a fit to the same-sign and opposite-sign dilepton data.

In the inclusive approach used here, the $`z`$ coordinate of the $`B`$ decay point is the $`z`$ position of the point of closest approach between the lepton candidate and an estimate of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ decay point in the transverse plane. The $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ decay point is obtained by fitting the two lepton tracks to a common vertex in the transverse plane, which is constrained to be consistent with the beam-spot position. The time difference, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$, between the two $`B`$ meson decays is determined from the absolute value, $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$, of the difference in $`z`$ between the two $`B`$ decays by $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=\mathrm{\Delta }z/\beta \gamma c`$. The background events (cascade leptons from unmixed $`B^0\overline{B}^0`$ events and $`B^+B^{}`$ events, and non-$`B\overline{B}`$ events) are most prominent at low $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ (see Fig. 2). Therefore, a requirement of $`\mathrm{\Delta }z>200`$$`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ allows us to eliminate about 50% of background without dramatically decreasing the signal efficiency. Finally, in the measurement of $`A_{T/CP}`$, the dilution factor due to remaining background is corrected as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$.

Application of the selection criteria described above results in a sample of 20,381 same-sign dilepton events, consisting of 5,252 electron pairs, 5,152 muon pairs and 9,977 electron-muon pairs. For $`\mathrm{\Delta }z>200`$$`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, the fraction of non-$`B\overline{B}`$ events, measured with the off-resonance data, is 4.3% with a charge asymmetry of $`(5\pm 10)\%`$; the main $`B\overline{B}`$ backgrounds, determined from Monte Carlo simulation, include 24% of one direct lepton paired with a cascade lepton from the other $`B`$, 10% of fake leptons from the other $`B`$, 2% of fake leptons from the same $`B`$ and 2% of leptons from $`J/\psi `$ or resonance decays.

Since the asymmetry $`A_{T/CP}`$ is expected to be small, we have carefully determined the possible charge asymmetries induced by the detection and reconstruction of electrons and muons. The three sources of charge asymmetry in the selection of lepton candidates come from differences, for positive and negative particles, in tracking efficiency $`\epsilon _{track}^\pm `$, in particle identification efficiency $`\epsilon _{pid}^\pm `$, and in misidentification probability $`\eta _{pid}^\pm `$. Independent samples are used to estimate these efficiencies and probabilities as a function of several charged track parameters $`x_i`$: total or transverse momentum, and polar and azimuthal angles in the laboratory frame. The numbers of “detected” positive and negative leptons $`N_{det}^\pm `$ are related to the numbers of true leptons $`N_{true}^\pm `$ by the equation

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill N_{det}^\pm (x_i,p^{})=& N_{true}^\pm (x_i,p^{})\epsilon _{track}^\pm (x_i)[\epsilon _{pid}^\pm (x_i)+\hfill \\ & r(\pi ,p^{})\eta _{pid}^\pm (\pi ,x_i)+r(K,p^{})\hfill \\ & \eta _{pid}^\pm (K,x_i)+r(p,p^{})\eta _{pid}^\pm (p,x_i)],\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
where $`r(\pi ,p^{})`$, $`r(K,p^{})`$ and $`r(p,p^{})`$ are the relative abundances of hadrons ($`\pi `$, $`K`$, and $`p`$) with respect to the lepton abundance for a given $`p^{}`$ (the momentum of the track in the CMS). These quantities are obtained from $`B\overline{B}`$ Monte Carlo events, after applying the event selection criteria with perfect particle identification. To correct for charge asymmetries in the lepton detection, we apply a weight proportional to the ratio $`N_{true}^\pm (x_i,p^{})/N_{det}^\pm (x_i,p^{})`$, for each lepton in the sample.

Using tracks selected from multi-hadron events, the tracking efficiencies $`\epsilon _{track}^\pm (x_i)`$ for positive and negative particles are determined by computing the ratio of the number of SVT tracks with at least 12 DCH hits as required in the dilepton selection, divided by the initial number of SVT tracks. These tracking efficiencies are tabulated as a function of transverse momentum and polar and azimuthal angles. The charge asymmetry correction is less than 0.1% on average in the relevant momentum range.

The identification efficiencies $`\epsilon _{pid}^\pm (x_i)`$ are measured as a function of total momentum and polar and azimuthal angles, with two control samples consisting of $`eeeeee(\mathrm{with}\gamma \gamma ee)`$ and radiative Bhabha events for electrons, and with a $`eeee\mu \mu (\mathrm{with}\gamma \gamma \mu \mu )`$ control sample for muons. The misidentification probabilities $`\eta _{pid}^\pm (\mathrm{hadron},x_i)`$ are determined using control samples of kaons produced in $`D^+\pi ^+D^0\pi ^+K^{}\pi ^+`$ decays (and charge conjugate), pions produced in $`K_S\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ decays, and one-prong and three-prong $`\tau `$ decays, and protons produced in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ decays.

For the electrons, the charge asymmetry in the particle identification efficiency reaches (0.5–1.0)% in some regions of the lepton phase space. The impact of the charge asymmetry in misidentification is negligible because the absolute misidentification probability for pions is extremely small ($`0.2\%`$). However, the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ control sample indicates a very large misidentification probability for antiprotons with momentum $`1\mathrm{GeV}/c`$. Such an effect is due to the annihilation of antiprotons with nucleons in the calorimeter, which produces a signature similar to that of an electron. The impact of this effect is balanced by the low relative abundance of antiprotons in $`B`$ decays. Overall, antiprotons induce a charge asymmetry of order 0.1% and a correction is applied for this effect.

For the muons, the $`ee\mu \mu `$ control sample shows that the charge asymmetry in the efficiency reaches 0.5%. The misidentification probability for pions is much larger ($`3\%`$) than in the case of electrons but there is no indication of any charge asymmetry induced. On the other hand, the kaon misidentification distribution shows a charge asymmetry at the level of (10–20)% due to the difference between cross sections for $`K^+`$ and $`K^{}`$ meson interactions with matter for momenta around 1 $`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$.

Equation 1 is applicable for pure signal (direct leptons from $`B^0B^0`$ and $`\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0}\overline{B}^0`$ events). However, the dilepton sample is contaminated by cascade leptons from $`B^+B^{}`$ and unmixed $`B^0\overline{B}^0`$ events, non-$`B\overline{B}`$ events, and $`J/\psi `$ decays (see Fig. 2). Assuming no charge asymmetry in the background and assuming $`CP`$ invariance holds in direct semileptonic $`B`$ decays, we can write the measured asymmetry $`A_{T/CP}^{meas}`$ (see Fig. 3) in terms of the number of events $`N`$ as

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill A_{T/CP}^{meas}(\mathrm{\Delta }t)& =\frac{N(\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^+,\mathrm{\Delta }t)N(\mathrm{}^{}\mathrm{}^{},\mathrm{\Delta }t)}{N(\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^+,\mathrm{\Delta }t)+N(\mathrm{}^{}\mathrm{}^{},\mathrm{\Delta }t)}\hfill \\ & =A_{T/CP}\frac{S(\mathrm{\Delta }t)}{S(\mathrm{\Delta }t)+B(\mathrm{\Delta }t)},\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
where $`S(\mathrm{\Delta }t)`$ and $`B(\mathrm{\Delta }t)`$ are the numbers of signal and background events respectively. Therefore, extraction of a value for $`A_{T/CP}`$ requires a determination of the dilution factor$`S(\mathrm{\Delta }t)/\left[S(\mathrm{\Delta }t)+B(\mathrm{\Delta }t)\right]`$. The asymmetry between same-sign dileptons is corrected for the background dilution using the time dependent probability density functions shown in Fig. 2. These probability density functions are obtained with a fit to data for the same-sign and opposite-sign dilepton samples with the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_d`$ fixed to the world average value PDG . This fit is similar to that used in the measurement of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_d`$ with dilepton events BaBarMixing : it determines the corrections to the resolution function extracted from Monte Carlo simulations, the fraction of cascade leptons, the average lifetime of the charm component for cascade leptons, the fraction of cascade leptons, and the fraction of charged $`B`$ events. In addition, the fraction of non-$`B\overline{B}`$ events is measured from off-resonance data. From a $`\chi ^2`$ fit to the distribution of the asymmetry as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ for the same-sign dileptons with $`\mathrm{\Delta }z>200`$$`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ (see Fig. 3), we extract $`A_{T/CP}=(0.5\pm 1.2)\%`$.

The systematic uncertainties related to the detection charge asymmetry both for tracking and lepton identification are determined using direct leptons from semileptonic $`B`$ decays. This sample has the same topology and kinematics as the leptons from dilepton events. This single-lepton charge asymmetry, sensitive to the charge asymmetry due to detection bias, may also be affected by the real physical asymmetry $`A_{T/CP}`$ in the dilepton events. But, in practice, the effect introduced by $`A_{T/CP}`$ is suppressed by more than one order of magnitude and is therefore neglected. With the 1999–2000 data set, we select roughly 1.5 million electrons and 1.5 million muons. After subtraction of scaled off-resonance data and after applying a correction weight derived from Eq. 2, we measure the charge asymmetries to be $`(0.30\pm 0.14)\%`$ for the electrons and $`(0.35\pm 0.17)\%`$ for the muons. We assign these residual asymmetries $`\pm 0.30\%`$ and $`\pm 0.35\%`$ as systematic errors due to charge asymmetry in detection efficiencies. With the dilution factor correction, the total systematic errors related to the charge asymmetry in the detection are $`\pm 0.5\%`$ and $`\pm 0.6\%`$ for electrons and muons, respectively.

The assumption of no charge asymmetry in the background is confirmed by the off-resonance data where the charge asymmetry $`(5\pm 10)\%`$ is consistent with zero and leads to a $`\pm 0.7\%`$ uncertainty on the $`A_{T/CP}`$ measurement. In addition, the charge asymmetry of the events with $`\mathrm{\Delta }z<100`$$`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, which contain 85% background (cascade leptons from $`B^\pm `$ and unmixed $`B^0`$), is $`(1.2\pm 1.4)\%`$, also consistent with zero. From this asymmetry, we can constrain to $`\pm 0.9\%`$ the uncertainty on $`A_{T/CP}`$ due to a possible charge asymmetry in the decays producing the cascade leptons. If we assume $`CP`$ invariance in the decays producing the cascade, this uncertainty vanishes.

The background dilution correction is measured with the data from the full dilepton sample with the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_d`$ fixed to the world average value PDG . The uncertainty on the ratio $`B/S`$ leads to a $`\pm 3\%`$ multiplicative error on $`A_{T/CP}`$, which is negligible. A possible dilution of $`A_{T/CP}`$ due to double mistag is neglected because the probability of double mistag is at the level of only 1%.

In conclusion, we measure $`A_{T/CP}=(0.5\pm 1.2(\mathrm{stat})\pm 1.4(\mathrm{syst}))\%`$ where the total systematic uncertainty is the quadratic sum of the systematic uncertainties listed in Table 1. From Eq. 1, the $`A_{T/CP}`$ asymmetry gives the modulus of the ratio of complex mixing parameters $`p`$ and $`q`$ equal to

$$|q/p|=0.998\pm 0.006(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.007(\mathrm{syst}).$$

This measurement can be translated into a measurement of the $`CP`$ violating parameter $`\epsilon _B=(pq)/(p+q)`$. We obtain $`\mathrm{Re}(\epsilon _B)/(1+|\epsilon _B|^2)=(1.2\pm 2.9(\mathrm{stat})\pm 3.6(\mathrm{syst}))\times 10^3`$, which is the most stringent test of $`T`$ and $`CP`$ violation in $`B^0`$-$`\overline{B}^0`$ mixing to date and is consistent with previous measurements others .

We are grateful for the excellent luminosity and machine conditions provided by our PEP-II colleagues, and for the substantial dedicated effort from the computing organizations that support BABAR. The collaborating institutions wish to thank SLAC for its support and kind hospitality. This work is supported by DOE and NSF (USA), NSERC (Canada), IHEP (China), CEA and CNRS-IN2P3 (France), BMBF (Germany), INFN (Italy), NFR (Norway), MIST (Russia), and PPARC (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the A. P. Sloan Foundation, Research Corporation, and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.


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# Return of the EMC effect: finite nuclei

## I Introduction

The nuclear structure function $`F_{2A}(x)`$ is smaller than $`A`$ times the free nucleon structure function $`AF_{2N}(x)`$ for values of $`x`$ in the regime where valence quarks are dominant. This phenomenon, known as the European Muon Collaboration (EMC) effect Aubert:1983xm , has been known for almost twenty years. Nevertheless, the significance of this observation remains unresolved even though there is a clear interpretation within the parton model: a valence quark in a bound nucleon carries less momentum than a valence quark in a free one. There are many possible explanations, but no universally accepted one. The underlying mechanism responsible for the transfer of momentum within the constituents of the nucleus has not yet been specified. One popular mechanism involves ordinary nuclear binding which, in its simplest inculcation, is represented by evaluating the free nucleon structure function at a value of $`x`$ increased by a factor of the average separation energy divided by the nucleon mass $`\overline{ϵ}/M0.04`$. The validity of this binding effect has been questioned; see the reviews Arneodo:1992wf ; Geesaman:1995yd ; Piller:1999wx ; Frankfurt:nt .

The Bjorken variable $`x`$ is a fraction of the plus component of momentum, and the desire to obtain a more precise evaluation and understanding of the binding effect lead us to attempt to obtain a nuclear wave function in which the momentum of the nucleons is expressed in terms of this same plus component. Therefore we applied light front dynamics to determining nuclear wave functions previous . In this formalism one defines $`x^\pm =x^0\pm x^3`$ and quantizes on equal $`x^+`$ surfaces which have a constant light front time, $`\tau `$. The conjugate operator $`P^{}`$ acts as an evolution operator for $`\tau `$. The plus momentum is canonically conjugate to the spatial $`x^{}`$ variable. This light front formalism has a variety of advantages lcrev1 ; lcrev2 ; lcrev3 ; lcrev4 ; lcrev5 ; lcrev6 ; lcrev7 ; lcrev8 ; lcrev9  and also entails complications complications .

Our most recent result Miller:2001tg  is that the use of the relativistic mean field approximation, and the assumption that the structure of the nucleon is not modified by effects of the medium, to describe infinite nuclear matter leads to no appreciable binding effect. The failure was encapsulated in terms of the Hugenholtz-van Hove theorem HvH  which states that the average nuclear binding energy per nucleon is equal to the binding energy of a nucleon at the top of the Fermi sea. The light front version of this theorem is obtained from the requirement that, in the nuclear rest frame, the expectation values of the total plus and minus momentum are equal. The original version of the theorem was obtained in a non-relativistic theory in which nucleons are the only degrees of freedom. Here, the mesons are important and the theory is relativistic, but the theorem still holds. This theorem can be shown to restrict Miller:2001tg  the plus momentum carried by nucleons to be the mass of the nucleus, which in turn implies that the probability for a nucleon to have a plus momentum $`k^+`$ is narrowly peaked about $`k^+=M_A/A=\overline{M}`$. Thus the only binding effect arises from the average binding energy, which is much smaller than the average separation energy. Therefore dynamics beyond the relativistic mean field approximation must be invoked to explain the EMC effect. This conclusion was limited to the case of infinite nuclear matter, and the computed nuclear structure function could only be compared with data on finite nuclear targets extrapolated to the limit $`A\mathrm{}`$. The goal of the present work is to extend the results to finite nuclei; the main complication arises from the spatial dependence of the nucleon and meson fields.

We briefly outline our procedure. In Sections II and III we present the covariant deep inelastic scattering formalism of Ref. Jung:1988jw  and derive its representation in terms of nucleon single particle wave functions. The plus momentum distribution follows from this representation in Section IV where we also derive new version of the Hugenholtz-van Hove theorem. Then we present the results of analytic and numerical calculations in Section V, the latter giving an $`A`$ dependence of the ratio function contrary to experimental results. This again gives the result that the use of the relativistic mean field approximation, combined with the assumption that the nuclear medium does not modify the structure of the nucleon, cannot describe the EMC effect. The reasons for the subtle differences between the results for finite nuclei and nuclear matter are detailed in Section VI. Finally, we summarize and discuss possible implications.

## II Nucleon Green’s Function for Finite Nuclei

We begin with the covariant plus momentum distribution function

$$f_N(y)=\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\delta \left(y\frac{k^0+k^3}{\overline{M}}\right)\text{Tr}\left[\frac{\gamma ^+}{2P^+A}\chi ^A(k,P)\right]$$
(1)
where we identify

$`\chi ^A(k,P)`$ $``$ $`i{\displaystyle d^4xd^4ye^{ik(xy)}G^C(x,y)},`$ (2)
where $`G^C(x,y)`$ is the connected part of the nucleon Green’s function:

$`iG(x,y)`$ $``$ $`P|T^+\{\psi ^{}(x)\overline{\psi }^{}(y)\}|P.`$ (3)
This result is directly determined from the Feynman diagram in Fig. 1

following Ref. Jung:1988jw . So far this is independent of the particular relativistic mean field model, but for concreteness we use a Quantum Hadrodynamics (QHD) Lagrangian Serot:1997xg ; Serot:1986ey , specifically QHD-I as in Ref. Blunden:1999gq , where the nucleon fields, $`\psi ^{}`$, that appear in Eq. (3) are those appearing in the Lagrangian. Light front quantization requires that the plus component of all vector potential fields vanishes, and this is obtained by using the Soper-Yan transformation Soper:1971wn ; Yan:1973qf

$$\psi ^{}(x)e^{ig_v\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)}\psi (x),^+\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)=V^+(x).$$
(4)
to define the nucleon field operator $`\psi `$ for various models Miller:2001tg . This transformation allows the use of the eigenmode expansion for the $`\psi `$ fields which have been obtained previously in Ref. Blunden:1999gq

$`\psi (x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}\left[a_\alpha u_\alpha (x)+b_\alpha ^{}v_\alpha (x)\right]`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}\left[a_\alpha u_\alpha (𝒙)e^{ip_\alpha ^{}x^+/2}+b_\alpha ^{}v_\alpha (𝒙)e^{ip_\alpha ^{}x^+/2}\right],`$
where $`a_\alpha `$ and $`b_\alpha ^{}`$ are (anti-)nucleon annihilation operators and we define $`zx^{}/2`$ with $`^+=2_{}=_z`$ and $`(𝒙_{},z)𝒙`$ which allows us to treat the minus and perpendicular coördinates on equal footing. The $`u_\alpha `$ and $`v_\alpha `$ are coördinate space 4-component spinor solutions to the light front Dirac equation with eigenvalues $`p_\alpha ^{}/2=M\epsilon _\alpha `$. To simplify the analysis we will temporarily ignore electromagnetic effects, but we will include them in the final numerical results. The light front mode equations in QHD-I are obtained by minimizing the $`P^{}`$ operator (light front Hamiltonian) with the constraint Blunden:1999gq  that $`P^+=P^{}`$. The result is

$`i_z|\psi _\alpha ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[𝜶_{}(𝒑_{}g_v\overline{𝑽}_{})+\beta (M+g_s\varphi )\right]|\psi _\alpha ^+`$ (6)
$`p_\alpha ^{}|\psi _\alpha ^+`$ $`=`$ $`\left[i_z+2g_v\overline{V}^{}\right]|\psi _\alpha ^+`$ (7)
$`+\left[𝜶_{}(𝒑_{}g_v\overline{𝑽}_{})+\beta (M+g_s\varphi )\right]|\psi _\alpha ^{},`$
with

$`u_\alpha (𝒙)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2P^+A}𝒙|\psi _\alpha `$ (8)
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\pm |\psi _\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\gamma ^0\gamma ^\pm |\psi _\alpha =|\psi _\alpha ^\pm `$ (9)
$`^+\overline{V}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`^+V^\mu ^\mu V^+.`$ (10)
Using standard manipulations Serot:1986ey  and defining $`\epsilon _F`$ as the energy of the highest occupied state, we find the Green’s function to be

$`G(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}u_\alpha (𝒙)\overline{u}_\alpha (𝒚)e^{ig_v[\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝒙)\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝒚)]}{\displaystyle \frac{dk^{}}{2\pi }e^{ik^{}(x^+y^+)/2}\left[\frac{1}{k^{}p_\alpha ^{}+i\epsilon }+2\pi i\delta (k^{}p_\alpha ^{})\theta (\epsilon _F\epsilon _\alpha )\right]}`$ (11)
$``$ $`G^D(x,y)+G^C(x,y),`$
where the superscripts $`D`$ and $`C`$ represent the disconnected and connected parts of the nucleon Green’s function, respectively. The connected part is relevant to deep inelastic scattering and is given by

$$G^C(x,y)=i\underset{\alpha F}{}u_\alpha (𝒙)\overline{u}_\alpha (𝒚)e^{ig_v[\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝒙)\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝒚)]}e^{ip_\alpha ^{}(x^+y^+)/2},$$
(12)
where the sum is over occupied levels $`\alpha `$ in the Fermi sea $`F`$. We now substitute Eq. (12) into Eq. (2), first defining $`(𝒌_{},k^+)𝒌`$ where $`𝒌𝒙=𝒌_{}𝒙_{}+k^+z=𝒌_{}𝒙_{}k^+x^{}/2`$, $`d𝒙=d^2𝒙_{}dz`$, $`d𝒌=d^2𝒌_{}dk^+`$ and

$$u_\alpha ^{\prime \prime }(𝒌)𝑑𝒙e^{i𝒌𝒙}e^{ig_v\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝒙)}u_\alpha (𝒙).$$
(13)
We find

$$\chi ^A(k,P)=(2\pi )^2\underset{\alpha F}{}u_\alpha ^{\prime \prime }(𝒌)\overline{u}_\alpha ^{\prime \prime }(𝒌)\delta (k^{}p_\alpha ^{}).$$
(14)
The motivation for the ‘double-prime’ notation is the subject of the next section.

## III Wave function Subtleties

It would be useful to express $`\chi ^A(k,P)`$ in terms of solutions of the ordinary Dirac equation, because one may use a standard computer program cjht . To this end it is convenient rewrite Eq. (13)

$$𝒌|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime +}=𝑑𝒙e^{i𝒌𝒙}e^{ig_v\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝒙)}𝒙|\psi _\alpha ^+.$$
(15)
Note that the difference between $`|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime +}`$ of Eq. (15) and $`u_\alpha ^{\prime \prime }`$ of Eq. (13) is simply the normalization factor $`\sqrt{2P^+A}`$. These ‘double-primed’ fields satisfy another version of the mode equations Eq. (6) and Eq. (7) following from an application of the Soper-Yan transformation Eq. (4), and are given by

$`\left[i_zg_vV^+\right]|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime }`$ $`=`$ $`\left[𝜶_{}(𝒑_{}g_v𝑽_{})+\beta (M+g_s\varphi )\right]|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime +}`$ (16)
$`\left[i_z+g_vV^+2g_v\overline{V}^{}+p_\alpha ^{}\right]|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime +}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[𝜶_{}(𝒑_{}g_v𝑽_{})+\beta (M+g_s\varphi )\right]|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime }.`$ (17)
If one multiplies Eq. (16) by $`\gamma ^+`$ and Eq. (17) by $`\gamma ^{}`$ and adds the two equations, using $`V^+=V^{}=\overline{V}^{}=V^0`$, one obtains

$$\left[\gamma ^3(i_z+p_\alpha ^{}/2)+\gamma ^0(p_\alpha ^{}/2g_vV^0)\right]\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime }(𝒙)=\left[𝜸_{}𝒑_{}+M+g_s\varphi \right]\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime }(𝒙)$$
(18)
Eq. (18) is almost the same as the Dirac equation of the equal time formulation (for the $`\psi ^{}`$ fields), with the exception of the $`p_\alpha ^{}`$ term multiplying $`\gamma ^3`$. Removing the offending term gives the relationship between the $`\psi ^{}`$ and $`\psi ^{\prime \prime }`$ fields

$`𝒙|\psi _\alpha ^{}`$ $``$ $`e^{ip_\alpha ^{}z/2}𝒙|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime }`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`e^{ip_\alpha ^{}z/2}e^{ig_v\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝒙)}𝒙|\psi _\alpha `$ (20)
Eq. (20) is the approximate relationship between the $`\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ fields determined in Ref. Blunden:1999gq . The approximation lies in the fact that the spectrum condition is not maintained exactly, and the resulting Fourier transform of the wavefunction will have unphysical support for $`k^+<0`$. This support is largely irrelevant as it manifests far out on an exponential tail since $`p_\alpha ^{}`$ contains the nucleon mass. The relationship between the $`\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{\prime \prime }`$ is exactly our definition Eq. (15). The use of Eq. (19) in Eq. (18) leads immediately to the result that the fields $`\psi _\alpha ^{}`$ satisfy the ordinary Dirac equation

$$\gamma ^0(p_\alpha ^{}/2g_vV^0)\psi _\alpha ^{}(𝒙)=\left[𝜸𝒑+M+g_s\varphi \right]\psi _\alpha ^{}(𝒙)$$
(21)
We now are ready to derive a representation of Eq. (1) in terms of these nucleon wave functions.

## IV Derivation of the Plus Momentum Distribution

In Ref. Blunden:1999gq , it was determined that a plus momentum distribution in QHD-I is given by

$$f(k^+)=2\underset{\alpha F}{}d^2𝒙_{}\left|𝒙_{},k^+|\psi _\alpha ^+\right|^2.$$
(22)
This distribution peaks at $`k^+/\overline{M}y0.8`$ for 16O, (with smaller values for heavier nuclei) but is not the distribution obtained from the covariant formalism of Section II. The connection between this $`f(y)`$ and the covariant $`f_N(y)`$ was made in Ref. Miller:2001tg ; it was determined that, in the limit of infinite nuclear matter, the relationship between $`f(y)`$ and $`f_N(y)`$ is simply a shift in the argument by the vector meson potential:

$$f(y)=f_N(y+g_vV^+/\overline{M}).$$
(23)
This shift arises from the use of the Soper-Yan transformation Eq. (4) where the $`\psi ^{}`$ fields are those appearing in the Lagrangian and are used to determine $`f_N(y)`$, whereas the $`\psi `$ fields are used to determine $`f(y)`$. In finite nuclei, this relationship is somewhat more complicated since the vector meson potential is no longer a constant over all space. We start with Eq. (14), and see that

$`\text{Tr}\gamma ^+\chi ^A(k,P)`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi )^2{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha F}{}}\text{Tr}\left[\gamma ^+u_\alpha ^{\prime \prime }(𝒌)\overline{u}_\alpha ^{\prime \prime }(𝒌)\right]\delta (k^{}p_\alpha ^{})`$
$`=`$ $`16\pi ^2P^+A{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha F}{}}\left|𝒌|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime +}\right|^2\delta (k^{}p_\alpha ^{}).`$
Substituting into Eq. (1) we obtain

$`f_N(y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha F}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝒌\delta (yk^+/\overline{M})\left|𝒌|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime +}\right|^2}.`$ (24)
Use of Parseval’s identity and integrating over $`k^+`$ gives us our main result:

$`f_N(y)`$ $`=`$ $`2\overline{M}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha F}{}}{\displaystyle d^2𝒙_{}\left|𝒙_{},\overline{M}y|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime +}\right|^2},`$ (25)
so the plus momentum distribution is related to Fourier transform of the $`\psi ^{\prime \prime }`$ wave functions. One can see the similarity to Eq. (22); the difference lies entirely in Eq. (15). It should be emphasized that this result does not depend on the approximation in Section III.

We shall use $`f_N(y)`$ to compute the nuclear structure function $`F_{2A}(x)`$ in Section V, but first we derive a version of the Hugenholtz-van Hove theorem valid for finite nuclei. To do that, multiply Eq. (24) by $`y`$ and integrate

$`y`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑yyf_N(y)}`$ (26)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha F}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝒌\frac{k^+}{\overline{M}}\left|𝒌|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime +}\right|^2},`$
Now remove the plus projections and re-express $`\psi ^{\prime \prime }`$ and its complex conjugate in coördinate spaces $`𝒙`$ and $`𝒙^{\mathbf{}}`$. One can then integrate over $`𝒌`$ yielding a delta function $`\delta (𝒙𝒙^{\mathbf{}})`$ which allows integration over $`𝒙^{\mathbf{}}`$

$`y`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{M}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha F}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝒙\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime }(𝒙)\gamma ^0\gamma ^+i^+\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime }(𝒙)}`$
We wish to look at the $`\psi `$ fields in order to understand our result in the context of Ref. Blunden:1999gq , so we need to perform the Soper-Yan transformation Eq. (4) and use $`X^{}\gamma ^0\overline{X}`$

$`y`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{M}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha F}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝒙\overline{\psi }_\alpha (𝒙)\gamma ^+[i^++g_vV^+(𝒙)]\psi _\alpha (𝒙)}`$
If we explicitly put in the the nuclear state vectors, we can perform the sum on $`\alpha `$ by inserting creation and annihilation operators; we can add the time dependence for free since it is unaffected by $`^+`$ and cancels with both fermion fields, and the vector potential is static. We have effectively undone the substitution Eq. (5) and now have an expectation value of an operator

$`y`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_A}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝒙\overline{\psi }\gamma ^+[i^++g_vV^+]\psi }`$ (27)
Using the vector meson field equation in QHD-I

$$_\mu V^{\mu +}+m_v^2V^+=g_v\overline{\psi }\gamma ^+\psi ,$$

integrating by parts, and anti-symmetrizing one can re-express the second term of Eq. (27)

$`y`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_A}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝒙\overline{\psi }\gamma ^+i^+\psi +m_v^2V^+V^++V^{+\mu }V_\mu ^+}`$ (28)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_A}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝒙T^{++}^+\varphi ^+\varphi }`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_A}}\left(P^+P_s^+\right)`$
$`=`$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{P_s^+}{M_A}}1`$
where $`T^{++}`$ is the canonical energy momentum tensor, $`P_s^+`$ is the plus momentum of the scalar meson fields, and $`P^+`$ is the total nuclear plus momentum. The result Eq. (28) constitutes an analog of the Hugenholtz-van Hove theorem HvH  for finite systems; the equality becomes exact in the nuclear matter limit, where the scalar meson contribution vanishes, as shown in our previous work Miller:2001tg . This means that we may anticipate that the binding effect will again be small. The ‘mixing’ of the vector operators and the scalar meson contribution will be elaborated on in a more general context in Section VI.

It is also worthwhile to explicitly evaluate the expression Eq. (25) for $`f_N(y)`$ in the limit of infinite nuclear matter. In this case, $`V^0=V^+=V^{}`$ are constant and $`𝑽_{}=0`$, so we find

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }(z,𝒙_{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _z^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑z^{}V^0(z^{},𝒙_{})`$ (29)
$`=`$ $`V^0z`$
$`=`$ $`V^+z,`$
so that Eq. (15) becomes

$`𝒌|\psi _\alpha ^{\prime \prime +}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑𝒙e^{i𝒌_{}𝒙_{}}e^{i(k^+g_vV^+)z}𝒙|\psi _\alpha ^+}`$ (30)
$`=`$ $`𝒌_{},k^+g_vV^+|\psi _\alpha ^+.`$
Therefore Eq. (25) becomes

$`f_N(y)`$ $`=`$ $`2\overline{M}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha F}{}}{\displaystyle d^2𝒙_{}\left|𝒙_{},\overline{M}yg_vV^+|\psi _\alpha ^+\right|^2},`$ (31)
which is simply the expression (22) modified by a shift in the argument of $`g_vV^+/\overline{M}`$. Thus we find Eq. (23) is satisfied in the nuclear matter limit. It is important to stress that all that is recovered here is the shift in the argument and not any particular form of the plus momentum distribution which arises from the specific model used.

## V Nuclear Structure Functions

We determine the wave functions appearing in Eq. (25) numerically from a relativistic self-consistent treatment following Horowitz and Serot Horowitz:1981xw  using the same program cjht  which includes electromagnetic effects. The plus momentum distribution follows and is given in Fig. 2 for 16O, 40Ca, 208Pb and in the nuclear matter limit (the 16O calculation is also shown in Fig. 4). One can see that the peaks appear near $`y=1`$ as required by the Hugenholtz-van Hove theorem Eq. (28).

It is worth noting that application of the Soper-Yan transformation Eq. (4) to the $`\psi ^{\prime \prime }`$ wavefunctions obtained from the equal time wavefunctions reproduces the plus momentum distributions, including the correct asymmetry, of the light front calculations in Ref. Blunden:1999gq , which did not use the approximation Eq. (19), as shown in Fig. 3 for Oxygen and nuclear matter.

This demonstrates the excellence of the approximation relating light front and equal time wavefunctions. One can see that the effect in finite nuclei of the Soper-Yan transformation is to shift and broaden the plus momentum distribution, while in nuclear matter it is just a shift. If these distributions were to be used in the nuclear structure function Eq. (33) though, since $`y0.8`$ for Oxygen, the ratio function Eq. (35) would fall precipitously to nearly zero at $`x0.6`$ in stark contradiction with experiment.

We also evaluated the plus momentum distribution Eq. (25) with the simple non-relativistic harmonic oscillator shell model as an additional check on our method. These (equal time) wavefunctions give us an explicit, although approximate in the sense of Section III, closed form of the plus momentum distribution for 16O:

$`f_N(y)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\xi }{\sqrt{16\pi }}}[e^{\xi ^2(\eta _{1s}y)^2}`$ (32)
$`+2(1+\xi ^2(\eta _{1p}y)^2)e^{\xi ^2(\eta _{1p}y)^2}],`$
with $`\eta _{nl}=M+\omega (2(n1)+l+3/2)v_0`$ where $`v_050\text{ MeV}`$, and $`\xi \overline{M}b`$ where $`b=(m\omega )^{1/2}1.6\text{ fm}`$ is the oscillator length which is fit to the root mean square radius of Oxygen $`R^2^{1/2}2.7\text{ fm}`$. The distribution Eq. (32) narrows for larger $`\xi `$ which corresponds to an increasing root mean square radius. This distribution is plotted in Fig. 4 where one can see that it peaks near $`y=1`$ like the relativistic Hartree calculation, but appears to have a smaller value of $`y`$.

It is worth noting that the Hartree calculations are in the relativistic equal time framework and put into our relativistic light front formalism, while the harmonic oscillator calculations are non-relativistic and put into our relativistic formalism.

The structure function is given by the convolution

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_{2A}(x_A)}{A}}={\displaystyle _{x_A}^A}𝑑yf_N(y)F_{2N}(x_A/y),`$ (33)
with $`x_AQ^2A/2Pq=xM/\overline{M}`$. The assumption that nuclear effects do not modify the structure of the nucleon is embodied in Eq. (33) by the use of the structure function of a free nucleon; we use the parameterization deGroot:yb

$$F_{2N}(x)=0.58\sqrt{x}(1x)^{2.8}+0.33\sqrt{x}(1x)^{3.8}+0.49(1x)^8.$$
(34)
The experiments measure the ratio function, defined as

$$R(x)=\frac{F_{2A}(x_A)}{AF_{2N}(x)}.$$
(35)
The results of our calculations are plotted for 16O, 40Ca, 208Pb and in the nuclear matter limit in Fig. 5 showing data for Carbon, Calcium and Gold from SLAC-E139 Gomez:1993ri  and an extrapolation Sick:1992pw  for the nuclear matter calculation.

The most striking result is that these calculations fail to reproduce the EMC effect; the curves consistently miss the minima in the data, and the agreement gets worse with increasing $`A`$. Another important result is that the ratio function does not fall to zero as would be the case if the small effective mass ($`0.56M`$ for nuclear matter in QHD-I) were the relevant parameter describing the binding effect which would follow from using Eq. (22) instead of Eq. (25). The results also show a minimum near $`x0.6`$ for Oxygen and nuclear matter that is deeper than the Calcium and Lead calculations. This is a curious feature that contradicts the trend in experimental data, and is due to the effects of two parameters.

The first, and most important, is that of the location of the peak of the plus momentum distribution given by Eq. (28), which gradually approaches $`y=1`$ as the nuclear matter limit is reached. This is due to the fact that scalar mesons carry a small amount of plus momentum Blunden:1999gq  that vanishes as $`A\mathrm{}`$. The closer to $`y=1`$ the peak is in Fig. 2, the less pronounced the minimum in Fig. 5, all else remaining constant. The second effect is due to $`\overline{M}`$, which reaches a minimum at 56Fe corresponding to a more pronounced minimum of the ratio function than for $`A<56`$ or $`A>56`$, keeping the scalar meson contribution constant.

Using a Gaussian parameterization of the plus momentum distribution and the experimental binding energy per nucleon via the semi-empirical mass formula, we have modeled the dependence of the minimum of the ratio function, $`R(x0.72)`$, on the number of nucleons in the nucleus in Fig. 6.

The motivation for the use of Gaussian plus momentum distributions is based on the expansion Frankfurt:nt

$`F_{2A}(x_A)`$ $`=`$ $`F_{2N}(x_A)+ϵx_AF_{2N}^{}(x_A)`$ (36)
$`+\gamma [2x_AF_{2N}^{}(x_A)+x_A^2F_{2N}^{\prime \prime }(x_A)]`$
$`\text{where }ϵ`$ $``$ $`1{\displaystyle 𝑑yyf_N(y)}`$ (37)
$`\gamma `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑y(y1)^2f_N(y)}`$ (38)
The Gaussian parameterization uses the peak location and width, $`y`$ and $`(y^2y^2)^{1/2}`$ respectively, from the relativistic Hartree calculations in Fig. 2, and is normalized to unity. This allows us to obtain a plus momentum distribution for any $`A`$ with minimal effort. We show the combined effect of scalar mesons and binding energy per nucleon on the ratio function along with the effect of scalar mesons alone using a constant binding energy per nucleon of $`8.5\text{ MeV}`$ independent of $`A`$. It can be seen that a changing $`\overline{M}`$ with $`A`$ has the most effect for nuclei much larger than Iron, but does not change the general trend that the minimum of the ratio function becomes less pronounced as $`A`$ increases due to the vanishing scalar meson contribution and the peak of the plus momentum distribution approaching unity. This dependence of the binding effect on $`A`$ is quite different, both in magnitude and shape, than the trend in experimental data summarized in Ref. Sick:1992pw  which satisfies $`R(x0.72)A^{1/3}`$, so that the minimum becomes more pronounced as $`A`$ increases. This fully demonstrates the inadequacy of conventional nucleon-meson dynamics to explain the EMC effect.

## VI Scalar Meson Contribution to Plus Momentum and More General Considerations

The average value of $`y`$, given by Eq. (28), yields the nucleon contribution to the plus momentum, and is less than one which can be seen in Fig. 2. We now address the remaining plus momentum in finite nuclei. Previous results Blunden:1999gq  show that a small fraction ($`\delta y0.005`$) of the plus momentum is carried by the scalar mesons which vanishes as the nuclear matter limit is approached. This is due to the fact that scalar mesons couple to gradients in the scalar density (arising mainly from the surface of finite nuclei) which vanish as $`A\mathrm{}`$. The question is: why are scalar mesons allowed to carry plus momentum and not vector mesons?

The simplest answer lies in the Dirac structure of Eq. (1); the $`\gamma ^+`$ in the trace picks out terms in the full interacting Green’s function with an odd number of gamma matrices which includes all Lorentz vector interactions and excludes Lorentz scalar interactions. The Dirac structure of $`f_N(y)`$ is directly related to the Dirac structure of the energy momentum tensor, so the answer also lies there and illuminates a problem with conventional nucleon-meson dynamics. The component of the energy momentum tensor relevant to the plus momentum, from a chiral Lagrangian containing isoscalar vector mesons, scalar mesons and pions, is given by Miller:1997cr ; Miller:1999ap

$`T^{++}`$ $`=`$ $`V^{+\mu }V_\mu ^++m_v^2V^+V^++\overline{\psi }\gamma ^+i^+\psi +^+\varphi ^+\varphi `$ (39)
$`+^+𝝅^+𝝅+𝝅^+𝝅{\displaystyle \frac{𝝅^+𝝅}{\pi ^2}}(1{\displaystyle \frac{f^2}{\pi ^2}}\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{f}}).`$
Since each of the terms in Eq. (39) involves one of the fields, it is natural to associate each term with a particular contribution to the plus momentum. This decomposition, though, is not well defined; field equations relate various components. We see the first three terms of Eq. (39) appear in $`y`$, which defines the nucleon contribution to the total nuclear plus momentum, in the derivation of the Hugenholtz-van Hove theorem Eq. (28); we are not allowed to have the vector mesons contribute a well defined fraction of plus momentum. This means that one could trade certain mesonic degrees of freedom for nucleons by replacing mesonic vertices with nucleon point couplings, for example, in line with the general concept of effective field theory. In our case the first three terms are related by the vector meson field equation, but the fourth is left out since the scalar mesons couple to the scalar density $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ which is not present in Eq. (39). Therefore the scalar mesons (and pions) contribute a well defined fraction of plus momentum. These explicit meson contributions create an EMC binding effect, but the pionic contributions are also limited by nuclear Drell-Yan experiments Alde:1990im  to carrying about 2% of the plus momentum which is insufficient to account for the entire EMC effect which corresponds to about 5% of the plus momentum for Iron.

## VII Summary and Discussion

The minimum in the EMC effect is known to have a monotonically decreasing behavior with $`A`$, which has been studied in Refs. Gomez:1993ri ; Sick:1992pw  among others. Our present theory is defined by the use of the mean-field approximation, along with the assumption that nuclear effects do not modify the structure of the nucleon. This theory leads to results in severe disagreement with experiment. Not only do we find that the depth of the minimum is monotonically decreasing with $`A`$, but it has a smaller magnitude than experiment. These results, which fail to capture any of the important features of the experiments, represent a failure of relativistic mean field theory. Furthermore, the plus momentum distributions we compute give $`y1`$ which indicates that nearly all of the plus momentum is carried by the nucleons. In order to reproduce the data, the nucleon plus momentum must be decreased by some mechanism that becomes more important at larger $`A`$. Nucleon-nucleon correlations cannot take plus momentum from nucleons, and explicit mesonic components in the nuclear Fock state wavefunction carrying plus momentum are limited Bickerstaff:1984ax ; Ericson:1984vt ; Berger:1986dr  by Drell-Yan experiments Alde:1990im . Thus it appears that the EMC effect may be due to something outside of conventional nucleon-meson dynamics. For example, true modifications to nucleon structure caused by nuclear interactions could be important, in which case one would need to use models such as the mini-delocalization model Frankfurt:nt , quark-meson coupling (QMC) model Saito:1994ki ; Benhar:1999up ; Gross:1992pi  or the chiral quark soliton model reviewed in Diakonov:2000pa  to include those effects.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank the USDOE for partial support of this work.