Hadron formation in deep-inelastic positron scattering in a nuclear environment

The influence of the nuclear medium on the production of charged hadrons in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering has been studied by the HERMES experiment at DESY using a 27.5 GeV positron beam. The differential multiplicity of charged hadrons and identified charged pions from nitrogen relative to that from deuterium has been measured as a function of the virtual photon energy \(\nu\) and the fraction z of this energy transferred to the hadron. There are observed substantial reductions of the multiplicity ratio \(R_M^{h}\) at low \(\nu\) and at high z, both of which are well described by a gluon-bremsstrahlung model of hadronization. A significant difference of the \(\nu\)-dependence of \(R_M^{h}\) is found between positive and negative hadrons. This is interpreted in terms of a difference between the formation times of protons and pions, using a phenomenological model to describe the \(\nu\)- and z-dependence of \(R_M^{h}\).