Measurement of the A dependence of deep-inelastic electron scattering

Cross sections for deep-inelastic electron scattering from liquid deuterium, gaseous ⁴He, and solid Be, C, Al, Ca, Fe, Ag, and Au targets were measured at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center using electrons with energies ranging from 8 to 24.5 GeV. These data cover a range in the Bjorken variable x from 0.089 to 0.8, and in momentum transfer Q² from 2 to 15 (GeV/c)². The ratios of cross sections per nucleon (σ^A/σ^d)_is for isoscalar nuclei have been extracted from the data. These ratios are greater than unity in the range 0.1<x<0.3, while for 0.3<x<0.8 they are less than unity and decrease logarithmically with atomic weight A, or linearly with average nuclear density. No Q² dependence in the ratios was observed over the kinematic range of the data. These results are compared to various theoretical predictions.