Small angle scattering of 280 GeV positive muons by deuterium, carbon and calcium has been measured at scattering angles down to 2 mrad. The nucleon structure function F 2 extracted from deuterium does not show a significant x dependence in the measured range of Q 2 and its Q 2 dependence is linear in log Q 2 . For calcium, a depletion of F 2 is observed at low x by 30% as compared with the values at x = 0.1 where F 2 (Ca) and F 2 (D) are not significantly different. This depletion is attributed to shadowing. The carbon structure function exhibits a similar, but less pronounced, x dependence. Such behaviour is observed to be independent of Q 2 . The data are consistent with those obtained from other charged lepton experiments both at similar and higher values of x and Q 2 and considerably extend the range of the measurements down to the low values of x to be measured in forthcoming experiments at HERA.
Deuterium data. Overall normalization error of 7 pct not included.
Deuterium data. Overall normalization error of 7 pct not included.
Deuterium data. Overall normalization error of 7 pct not included.
Using the data on deep inelastic muon scattering on iron and deuterium the ratio of the nucleon structure functions F 2 N ( Fe )/ F 2 N ( D ) is presented. The observed x -dependence of this ratio is in disagreement with existing theoretical predictions.
RANGE OF Q*2 VARIES WITH X. E.G. AT X=0.05 , 9<Q2<27. AT X=0.65 , 36<Q2<170 GEV**2.