Double parton scattering off nuclei and the double-EMC effect

Abstract

The double-parton scattering process off light and heavy nuclei is proposed as an effective tool to open a novel window for accurately studying the effects of nuclear binding on the internal structure of the nucleon, in the spirit of the European Muon Collaboration (EMC) effect. The key ingredient is the actual calculation of nuclear double-parton distributions that contain information about double-parton distributions and generalized-parton distributions of the nucleon, folded with nuclear light-front distributions. It allows to introduce a new quantity, which we call double-EMC ratio that appears to be much more sensitive than the standard EMC effect to both the nucleon partonic structure and to the nuclear binding. Hence, it could help solving long-standing questions about how nucleons change when they are bound in atomic nuclei.