Is the proton electromagnetic form factor modified in nuclei?

Guided by the recent experimental confirmation of the validity of the Effective Momentum Approximation (EMA) in quasi-elastic scattering off nuclei, we have re-examined the extraction of the Longitudinal and Transverse Response Functions in medium-weight and heavy nuclei. In the EMA we have performed a Rosenbluth separation of the available world data on 40Ca, 48Ca, 56Fe and 208Pb. We find that the Longitudinal Response Function for these nuclei is ”quenched” and that the Coulomb sum is not saturated, at odds with recent claims in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]