First Measurement of Lambda Electroproduction off Nuclei in the Current and Target Fragmentation Regions

We report results of. hyperon production in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering off deuterium, carbon, iron, and lead targets obtained with the CLAS detector and the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility 5.014 GeV electron beam. These results represent the first measurements of the. multiplicity ratio and transverse momentum broadening as a function of the energy fraction (z) in the current and target fragmentation regions. The multiplicity ratio exhibits a strong suppression at high z and an enhancement at low z. The measured transverse momentum broadening is an order of magnitude greater than that seen for light mesons. This indicates that the propagating entity interacts very strongly with the nuclear medium, which suggests that propagation of diquark configurations in the nuclear medium takes place at least part of the time, even at high z. The trends of these results are qualitatively described by the Giessen Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck transport model, particularly for the multiplicity ratios. These observations will potentially open a new era of studies of the structure of the nucleon as well as of strange baryons.

Automated summary

We report the first measurements of the multiplicity ratio and transverse momentum broadening as a function of energy fraction in hyperon production in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering off different targets. These results show a strong suppression at high energy fraction and an enhancement at low energy fraction. The observed transverse momentum broadening is much larger than that of light mesons, indicating a strong interaction between the propagating entity and the nuclear medium.