Quasielastic versus inelastic and deep inelastic lepton scattering in nuclei at x>1

We have made a thorough investigation of the nuclear structure function W-2A in the region of 0.8 < x < 1.5 and Q(2) < 20 GeV2, separating the quasielastic and inelastic plus deep inelastic contributions. The agreement with present experimental data is good giving support to the results for both channels, Predictions are made in yet unexplored regions of x and Q(2) to assert the weight of the quasielastic or inelastic channels. We find that at Q(2) < 4 GeV2 the structure function is dominated by the quasielastic contributions for x < 1.5, while for values of Q(2) > 15 GeV2 and the range of x studied the inelastic channels are over one order of magnitude bigger than the quasielastic one. The potential of the structure function at x > 1 as a source of information on nuclear correlations is stressed once more. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.