Experimental study of Short Range Correlations in nuclei


  Igor Korover  
Physics Department Tel Aviv University
Igor Korover

Hard nucleon knockout experiments on nuclei enable resolving the detailed structure of short-range nucleon-nucleon correlations (NN-SRCs). If the nucleon being struck is very close to another nucleon, the short-range nucleon-nucleon force causes both nucleons to be knocked out. In “triple coincidence” or “exclusive” experiments, the two outgoing SRC nucleons are detected in coincidence with the scattered projectile particle. Kinematics can be chosen to allow studying high-momentum nucleons in the nucleus, with relatively small contributions from competing processes such as meson exchange currents, and resonance production. These experiments done with high energy electron and proton probes demonstrated that up to relative momentum of 550 MeV/c, the NN-SRC dynamics are dominated by the tensor component of the NN force. The NN-SRC are almost always proton-neutron pairs rather than neutron-neutron or proton-proton pairs. The results have implications across fields of the physical sciences, as nuclear matter behavior effects calculations from the density of neutron stars all the way down to understanding the nucleon-nucleon interaction. Experimental results will be presented from these triple coincidence experiments, carried out at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and Jefferson Laboratory (JLab/Hall A).