Recent results on nuclear structure functions for light nuclei
We discuss the nuclear EMC effect with particular emphasis on recent data for light nuclei including {sup 2}H, {sup 3}He, {sup 4}He, {sup 9}Be, {sup 12}C and {sup 14}N. In order to verify the consistency of available data, we calculate the {chi}{sup 2} deviation between different data sets. We find a good agreement between the results from the NMC, SLAC E139, and HERMES experiments. However, our analysis indicates an overall normalization offset of about 2% in the data from the recent JLab E03-103 experiment with respect to previous data for nuclei heavier than {sup 3}He. We also discuss the extraction of the neutron/proton structure function ratio F{sub 2}{sup n}/F{sub 2}{sup p} from the nuclear ratios {sup 3}He/{sup 2}H and {sup 2}H/{sup 1}H. Our analysis shows that the E03-103 data on {sup 3}He/{sup 2}H require a renormalization of about 3% in order to be consistent with the F{sub 2}{sup n}/F{sub 2}{sup p} ratio obtained from the NMC experiment. After such a renormalization, the {sup 3}He data from the E03-103 data and HERMES experiments are in a good agreement. We also present a detailed comparison between data and model calculations, which include a description of the nuclear binding, Fermi motion and off-shell corrections to the structure functions of bound proton and neutron, as well as the nuclear pion and shadowing corrections.