MANY-BODY APPROACH TO THE INCLUSIVE (E,E') REACTION FROM THE QUASI-ELASTIC TO THE DELTA-EXCITATION REGION

We have performed a many-body calculation of the inclusive (e, e') cro ss section which runs over the three traditional regions at intermedia te energies: the quasielastic peak, the dip region and the delta regio n. The longitudinal and transverse response functions in the quasielas tic peak have also been evaluated, Traditional effects like polarizati on, meson exchange currents, final state interaction and delta renorma lization in the nuclear medium have been included. Meson exchange curr ents are generated from a model of pion electroproduction on the nucle on which reproduces accurately the experimental data. The inclusive cr oss section accounts for 1N, 2N, 3N mechanisms of virtual photon absor ption and one pion production. Meson exchange currents associated to t he (gamma, 2 pi) reaction are also accounted for. We obtain good resu lts for the (e, e') cross sections in the whole energy range and for d ifferent nuclei. The response functions are also in good agreement wit h the latest experimental analysis. On the other hand, the method prov ides the separation of the contribution to the inclusive cross section from different physical channels which is a necessary input to evalua te cross sections like (e, e'N), (e, e'NN), (e, e'pi), etc. (C) 1997 E lsevier Science B.V.