Mesons in Nuclei in the Light-Front Mean Field Approximation and Deep-Inelastic Scattering

A light-front treatment for the scalar and vector meson momentum distribution functions is developed using a model in which the nucleus is treated a static source of radius $R$. The limit $R\to \infty$ corresponds to infinite nuclear matter. In this limit, the scalar mesons are shown to carry a vanishing momentum fraction of the nuclear plus momentum $k^+$, but the vector mesons carry a significant fraction, all occuring at the experimentally inaccessible value of $k^+=0$. This confirms earlier work. A study of the $R$ dependence for sizes of real nuclei shows that a fraction of the scalar and vector mesons could be observable.