Inclusive Electron-Nucleus Scattering at $x>1$ and High $Q^2$

Inclusive electron scattering from nuclei provides a rich, yet complicated mixture of physics that has yet to be fully exploited. The cross section at high momentum transfer arises from several reactions including quasi--elastic scattering from nucleons and deep inelastic scattering from the quark consitituents of the nucleons. Inclusive electron scattering presents the opportunity to investigate the transition from a regime where nucleon degrees of freedom hold sway to one where the more fundamental QCD interactions, involving quarks and gluons, are expected to dominate. Data at large values of $x$ over a range of $Q^2$ can be employed to study a wide variety of topics: nuclear momentum distributions, medium modifications of nucleon properties, the influence of final state interactions and the approach to $y$-scaling, the strength of nucleon-nucleon correlations at large $x$, and the approach to $x$- scaling. We recently completed such an experiment in Jefferson Lab's Hall C in which \mbox{6 GeV} electrons were scattered from both few-body nuclei and heavy nuclei at high momentum transfers. This experiment significantly extended the kinematic region at high momentum transfer and large (negative) $y$ (corresponding to large Bjorken $x$), explored in previous experiments. After a brief statement of the physics motivation for this experiment, we will present preliminary results.