The semi-classical approach to the exclusive electron scattering

The semiclassical approach, successfully applied in the past to the inelastic, inclusive electron scattering off nuclei, is extended to the treatment of exclusive processes. The final states interaction is accounted for in the mean field approximation, respecting the Pauli principle. The impact on the exclusive cross section of the shape of the potential binding the nucleons into the nucleus and of the distortion of the outgoing nucleon wave are explored. The exclusive scattering is found to be quite sensitive to the mean field final states interaction, unlike the inclusive one. Indeed we verify that the latter is not affected, as implied by unitarity, by the distortion of the outgoing nucleon wave except for the effect of relativity, which is modest in the range of momenta up to about 500 MeV/c. Furthermore, depending upon the correlations between the directions of the outgoing and of the initial nucleon, the exclusive cross-section turns out to be remarkably sensitive to the shape of the potential binding the nucleons. These correlations also critically affect the domain in the missing energy-- missing momentum plane where the exclusive process occurs.