Studying the Impact of Virtuality-Dependent Nucleon Structure Modification on Spectator-Tagged DIS

The EMC effect, or the observation that Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) on bound nucleons differs significantly from that on free nucleons, has puzzled nuclear physicists for more than forty years. One hypothesis to explain this behavior is that this structure modification comes from highly virtual nucleons participating in short-range correlations (SRCs). This hypothesis can be tested directly using the technique of spectator-tagging, in which the coincident detection of a recoiling nucleon is used to probe the partonic structure of highly virtual nucleons. In this presentation, I will discuss a calculation of predictions for a "spectator-tagged" structure function of helium-4, using a combination of of Generalized Contact Formalism's description of SRCs and light-cone convolution formalism, and how this calculation indicates that differences in the virtuality-dependence of nucleon structure modification can significantly impact the tagged structure function. I will also discuss how an analysis of electron-scattering data on helium-4 in the recent CLAS12 Short-Range Correlations Experiment may enable the constraint of this virtuality-dependence and help test whether correlations are the source of the EMC effect.