CAN A HIGHLY VIRTUAL NUCLEON EXPERIENCE FINAL-STATE INTERACTIONS IN ELECTRON-NUCLEUS SCATTERING

We discuss how the virtuality of the struck particle may affect the fi nal state interactions in electron-nucleus scattering, The extent to w hich short-range correlations inhibit rescatterings taking place withi n the range of the repulsive core of the nucleon-nucleon interaction i s quantitatively analyzed within the eikonal approach, based on the on -shell approximation for the nucleon-nucleon scattering amplitude. The possible modifications of the amplitude associated with the virtualit y are then studied within the framework of a nonrelativistic model. Th e results indicate that the accuracy of the on-shell approximation str ongly depends upon the momentum, and turns out to be rather good in th e kinematical region relevant to the analysis of the available inclusi ve data at large momentum transfer and low energy loss.