Relativistic versus nonrelativistic optical potentials in A(e,e’p)B reactions

We investigate the role of relativistic and nonrelativistic optical potentials used in the analysis of (e,e’p) data. We find that the relativistic calculations produce smaller (e,e’p) cross sections even in the case in which both relativistic and nonrelativistic optical potentials fit equally well the elastic proton-nucleus scattering data. Compared to the nonrelativistic impulse approximation, this effect is due to a depletion in the nuclear interior of the relativistic nucleon current, which should be taken into account in the nonrelativistic treatment by a proper redefinition of the effective current operator.