Coulomb distortion effects in quasi-elastic (e,e′) scattering on heavy nuclei

The influence of the Coulomb distortion for quasi-elastic (e,e′) scattering on highly charged nuclei is investigated in distorted wave Born approximation for electrons. The Dirac equation is solved numerically in order to obtain exact electron continuum states in the electrostatic field generated by the charge distribution of an atomic nucleus. Different approximate models are used to describe the nucleon current in order to show that, at high electron energies and energy–momentum transfer, the influence of Coulomb distortions on (e,e′) cross sections can be reliably described by the effective momentum approximation, irrespective of details concerning the description of the nuclear current.