Measurements of the nucleon structure function in the range $0.002-{\rm GeV}^2 < x < 0.17-{\rm GeV}^2$ and $0.2-GeV^2 < q^2 < 8-GeV^2$ in deuterium, carbon and calcium

Small angle scattering of 280 GeV positive muons by deuterium, carbon and calcium has been measured at scattering angles down to 2 mrad. The nucleon structure function F 2 extracted from deuterium does not show a significant x dependence in the measured range of Q 2 and its Q 2 dependence is linear in log Q 2 . For calcium, a depletion of F 2 is observed at low x by 30% as compared with the values at x = 0.1 where F 2 (Ca) and F 2 (D) are not significantly different. This depletion is attributed to shadowing. The carbon structure function exhibits a similar, but less pronounced, x dependence. Such behaviour is observed to be independent of Q 2 . The data are consistent with those obtained from other charged lepton experiments both at similar and higher values of x and Q 2 and considerably extend the range of the measurements down to the low values of x to be measured in forthcoming experiments at HERA.