leptoninduced

Lepton-induced refers to processes triggered by leptons interacting with matter or nuclei. In physics, lepton-induced reactions are those in which a lepton beam or flux collides with a target, producing scattering, excitation, or particle production. The term covers both charged-lepton interactions, mainly electromagnetic for electrons and muons, and weak interactions for neutrinos; tau leptons can participate at sufficiently high energies. Leptons provide clean probes of nuclear and hadronic structure due to their point-like nature.

Common examples include electron-induced deep inelastic scattering on nucleons or nuclei, elastic and inelastic electron scattering, muon-induced spallation and energy loss in matter, and neutrino-nucleon or neutrino-nucleus scattering. Deep inelastic scattering experiments reveal the parton structure of hadrons, while elastic scattering probes form factors. Neutrino interactions proceed via charged-current and neutral-current channels and are central to neutrino-oscillation measurements and cross-section determinations.

The theoretical description combines quantum electrodynamics for electromagnetic parts with electroweak theory for weak processes, and, for the hadronic remnants, quantum chromodynamics and nuclear models. Observables include differential cross sections, structure functions, and final-state kinematics, which are used to extract parton distributions and test Standard Model predictions.

Experimentally, lepton-induced processes are studied in fixed-target facilities and collider experiments using electron, muon, or neutrino beams. Applications range from probing nucleon structure and refining cross-section models to detector calibration, neutrino physics, and neutrino tomography or radiative-background studies in high-energy experiments.