Scaling and isospin effects in quasielastic lepton-nucleus scattering in the relativistic mean field approach

The role of isospin in quasiclastic electron scattering and charge-changing neutrino reactions is investigated in the relativistic impulse approximation. We analyze proton and neutron scaling functions making use of various theoretical descriptions for the final-state interactions, focusing on the effects introduced by the presence of strong scalar and vector terms in the relativistic mean field approach. An explanation for the differences observed in the scaling functions evaluated from (e, e') and (v, mu) reactions is provided by invoking the differences in isoscalar and isovector contributions. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.