https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-026-01831-6
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
The European Muon Collaboration effect from a SRC-driven x-rescaling model and nuclear mean-field medium modifications
1
School of Nuclear Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, 730000, Lanzhou, China
2
Frontiers Science Center for Rare Isotopes, Lanzhou University, 730000, Lanzhou, China
3
Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 730000, Lanzhou, China
4
School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China
a
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Received:
3
September
2025
Accepted:
26
February
2026
Published online:
24
March
2026
Abstract
The linear relationship between the abundance of nucleon–nucleon (NN) short-range correlations (SRCs) and the magnitude of the European Muon Collaboration (EMC) effect strongly suggests a deep connection between these two novel nuclear phenomena, motivating further investigation into their causal link. In this study, we focus exclusively on modifying the nucleon structure function within SRC pairs under the framework of the x-rescaling model. We further consider a more complete mean-field background by incorporating both the Fermi motion and nuclear binding effects of mean-field nucleons. Our results demonstrate that the Fermi motion plays an indispensable role in large-x region. However, even with the optimization of the mean-field effects, NN SRC and Fermi motion fail to fully reproduce the data from JLab Hall C experiments. This discrepancy suggests that while NN SRCs are a primary driver of the EMC effect, it may not be the sole contributing factor. The structure function of nucleons within the mean-field may also undergo modification, or alternatively, more complex correlations, such as three-nucleon SRCs or 
clustering, should be taken into account as well.
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Communicated by Arnau Rios Huguet.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2026
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
