The influence of the nuclear medium upon the internal structure of a composite nucleon is examined. The interaction with the medium is assumed to depend on the relative distances between the quarks in the nucleon consistent with the notion of color neutrality, and to be proportional to the nucleon density. In the resulting description the nucleon in matter is a superposition of the ground state (free nucleon) and radial excitations. The effects of the nuclear medium on the electromagnetic and weak nucleon form factors and the nucleon structure function are computed using a light-front constituent quark model. Further experimental consequences are examined by considering the electromagnetic nuclear response functions. The effects of color neutrality supply small but significant corrections to predictions of observables. © 1996 The American Physical Society.

• Received 18 September 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.54.920