[Clascomment] OPT-IN: Proton Transparency and Neutrino Physics: New methods and Modeling

[Mikhail Osipenko]

Dear Leading Authors,

few comments:

Fig.2 – are you sure that Top=2.2 GeV and Bottom=4.4 GeV? Looks opposite. Also red line on the right plot can be confused with left, and it is not described in the caption.

Fig.5 – not clear why the blue distribution is modulated in phi? You state that it is “generated” events, I would expect them to ignore CLAS acceptance.

Figs.2,3,4,5,6,7 – since you have measured two reactions, please indicate for which one you plot “number of events”.

Line 275 - “acceptance and background subtraction as in Ref.[28]” – not sure I understood what is the acceptance subtraction? In general, the acceptance corrections are not well described, section B does not really explains what have been done with CLAS acceptance for electrons and protons.

Line 408 – “(RC) correction was applied bin-by-bin to both the (e, e′) and (e, e′p) samples” – not sure how inclusive Mo&Tsai RC could be applied to the (e,e’p) reaction? There are specific codes for this semi-inclusive reactions. E.g. the large peak depletion shown in Fig.8 is due to event drift into the so called elastic tail, but in e’p elastic tail cannot exist.

Are the ratios in Figs.10-15 corrected for the parts of initial proton momentum distributions cut out by your selection? It is hard to find this simple information in your paper.

You have spent a lot of words about smaller SRC corrections, but in Figs.11-12 show that your data agree with previous measurements (perhaps one point for Fe56 is lower, but it could be statistical effect). Where is the effect of “smaller SRC correction”?

Instead, all you e’p distributions show 30-50% overestimates of the data by MC models. And this striking different is not explained. How is it possible? The shapes of momentum distributions look similar, then the only difference could be in form-factors. But even dipole parametrization gives 5-10% precision in our Q2 range. Are you sure exactly the same cuts were applied to MC and the data?