  We present a detailed theoretical investigation of hadron attenuation in deep
inelastic scattering (DIS) off complex nuclei in the kinematic regime of the
HERMES experiment. The analysis is carried out in the framework of a
probabilistic coupled-channel transport model based on the
Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) equation, which allows for a treatment of the
final-state interactions (FSI) beyond simple absorption mechanisms.
Furthermore, our event-by-event simulations account for the kinematic cuts of
the experiments as well as the geometrical acceptance of the detectors. We
calculate the multiplicity ratios of charged hadrons for various nuclear
targets relative to deuterium as a function of the photon energy nu, the hadron
energy fraction z_h=E_h/nu and the transverse momentum p_T. We also confront
our model results on double-hadron attenuation with recent experimental data.
Separately, we compare the attenuation of identified hadrons (pi^\pm, \pi^0,
K^\pm, p and pbar) on Ne and Kr targets with the data from the HERMES
Collaboration and make predictions for a Xe target. At the end we turn towards
hadron attenuation on Cu nuclei at EMC energies. Our studies demonstrate that
(pre-)hadronic final-state interactions play a dominant role in the kinematic
regime of the HERMES experiment while our present approach overestimates the
attenuation at EMC energies.
