While mean-field approximations, such as the nuclear shell model, provide a good description of many bulk nuclear properties, they fail to capture the important effects of nucleon–nucleon ...correlations such as the short-distance and high-momentum components of the nuclear many-body wave function1. Here, we study these components using the effective pair-based generalized contact formalism2,3 and ab initio quantum Monte Carlo calculations of nuclei from deuteron to 40Ca (refs. 4–6). We observe a universal factorization of the many-body nuclear wave function at short distance into a strongly interacting pair and a weakly interacting residual system. The residual system distribution is consistent with that of an uncorrelated system, showing that short-distance correlation effects are predominantly embedded in two-body correlations. Spin- and isospin-dependent ‘nuclear contact terms’ are extracted in both coordinate and momentum space for different realistic nuclear potentials. The contact coefficient ratio between two different nuclei shows very little dependence on the nuclear interaction model. These findings thus allow extending the application of mean-field approximations to short-range correlated pair formation by showing that the relative abundance of short-range pairs in the nucleus is a long-range (that is, mean field) quantity that is insensitive to the short-distance nature of the nuclear force.Effects of nucleon–nucleon correlations are studied with the generalized contact formalism and ab initio quantum Monte Carlo calculations. For nuclei from deuteron to 40Ca, the many-body nuclear wave function is shown to factorize at short distances.
Hard probes of short-range nucleon–nucleon correlations Arrington, J.; Higinbotham, D.W.; Rosner, G. ...
Progress in particle and nuclear physics,
October 2012, 2012-10-00, 2012-10-01, Letnik:
67, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
One of the primary goals of nuclear physics is providing a complete description of the structure of atomic nuclei. While mean-field calculations provide detailed information on the nuclear shell ...structure for a wide range of nuclei, they do not capture the complete structure of nuclei, in particular the impact of small, dense structures in nuclei. The strong, short-range component of the nucleon–nucleon potential yields hard interactions between nucleons which are close together, generating a high-momentum tail to the nucleon momentum distribution, with momenta well in excess of the Fermi momentum. This high-momentum component of the nuclear wave-function is one of the most poorly understood parts of nuclear structure.
Utilizing high-energy probes, we can isolate scattering from high-momentum nucleons, and use these measurements to examine the structure and impact of short-range nucleon–nucleon correlations. Over the last decade we have moved from looking for evidence of such short-range structures to mapping out their strength in nuclei and examining their isospin structure. This has been made possible by high-luminosity and high-energy accelerators, coupled with an improved understanding of the reaction mechanism issues involved in studying these structures. We review the general issues related to short-range correlations, survey recent experiments aimed at probing these short-range structures, and lay out future possibilities to further these studies.
Mechanisms of spin-flavor SU(6) symmetry breaking in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) are studied via an extraction of the free neutron structure function from a global analysis of deep inelastic ...scattering (DIS) data on the proton and on nuclei from A=2 (deuterium) to 208 (lead). Modification of the structure function of nucleons bound in atomic nuclei (known as the EMC effect) are consistently accounted for within the framework of a universal modification of nucleons in short-range correlated (SRC) pairs. Our extracted neutron-to-proton structure function ratio F_{2}^{n}/F_{2}^{p} becomes constant for x_{B}≥0.6, equaling 0.47±0.04 as x_{B}→1, in agreement with theoretical predictions of perturbative QCD and the Dyson-Schwinger equation, and in disagreement with predictions of the scalar diquark dominance model. We also predict F_{2}^{^{3}He}/F_{2}^{^{3}H}, recently measured, as yet unpublished, by the MARATHON Collaboration, the nuclear correction function that is needed to extract F_{2}^{n}/F_{2}^{p} from F_{2}^{^{3}He}/F_{2}^{^{3}H}, and the theoretical uncertainty associated with this extraction.
Elastic electron-proton scattering (e-p) and the spectroscopy of hydrogen atoms are the two methods traditionally used to determine the proton charge radius, r
. In 2010, a new method using muonic ...hydrogen atoms
found a substantial discrepancy compared with previous results
, which became known as the 'proton radius puzzle'. Despite experimental and theoretical efforts, the puzzle remains unresolved. In fact, there is a discrepancy between the two most recent spectroscopic measurements conducted on ordinary hydrogen
. Here we report on the proton charge radius experiment at Jefferson Laboratory (PRad), a high-precision e-p experiment that was established after the discrepancy was identified. We used a magnetic-spectrometer-free method along with a windowless hydrogen gas target, which overcame several limitations of previous e-p experiments and enabled measurements at very small forward-scattering angles. Our result, r
= 0.831 ± 0.007
± 0.012
femtometres, is smaller than the most recent high-precision e-p measurement
and 2.7 standard deviations smaller than the average of all e-p experimental results
. The smaller r
we have now measured supports the value found by two previous muonic hydrogen experiments
. In addition, our finding agrees with the revised value (announced in 2019) for the Rydberg constant
-one of the most accurately evaluated fundamental constants in physics.
This Letter shows quantitatively that the magnitude of the EMC effect measured in electron deep inelastic scattering at intermediate x(B), 0.35≤x(B)≤0.7, is linearly related to the short range ...correlation (SRC) scale factor obtained from electron inclusive scattering at x(B)≥1. The observed phenomenological relationship is used to extract the ratio of the deuteron to the free pn pair cross sections and F(2)(n)/F(2)(p), the ratio of the free neutron to free proton structure functions. We speculate that the observed correlation is because both the EMC effect and SRC are dominated by the high virtuality (high momentum) nucleons in the nucleus.
The E12-14-012 experiment, performed in Jefferson Lab Hall A, has measured the $(e, e'p)$ cross section in parallel kinematics using a natural argon target. Here, we report the full results of the ...analysis of the data set corresponding to beam energy 2.222 GeV, and spanning the missing momentum and missing energy range $15 \lesssim p_m \lesssim 300$ MeV/c and $12 \lesssim E_m \lesssim 80$ MeV. The reduced cross section, determined as a function of $p_m$ and $E_m$ with $\approx$4\% accuracy, has been fitted using the results of Monte Carlo simulations involving a model spectral function and including the effects of final state interactions. The overall agreement between data and simulations turns out to be quite satisfactory ($\chi^2$/n.d.o.f.=1.9). Furthermore, the resulting spectral function will provide valuable new information, needed for the interpretation of neutrino interactions in liquid argon detectors.
The E12-14-012 experiment, performed in Jefferson Lab Hall A, has measured the (e, e'p) cross section in parallel kinematics using a natural titanium target. In this paper, we report the analysis of ...the dataset obtained in different kinematics for our solid natural titanium target. Data were obtained in a range of missing momentum and missing energy between 15 ≲ pm ≲ 250 MeV / c and 12 ≲ Em ≲ 80 MeV, respectively, and using an electron beam energy of 2.2 GeV. We measured the reduced cross section with ~7% accuracy as a function of both missing momentum and missing energy. Furthermore, our Monte Carlo simulation, including both a model spectral function and the effects of final-state interactions, satisfactorily reproduces the data.
We present a search at the Jefferson Laboratory for new forces mediated by sub-GeV vector bosons with weak coupling α' to electrons. Such a particle A' can be produced in electron-nucleus ...fixed-target scattering and then decay to an e + e- pair, producing a narrow resonance in the QED trident spectrum. Using APEX test run data, we searched in the mass range 175-250 MeV, found no evidence for an A'→ e+ e- reaction, and set an upper limit of α'/α ~/= 10(-6). Our findings demonstrate that fixed-target searches can explore a new, wide, and important range of masses and couplings for sub-GeV forces.
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