Nucleon-nucleon correlations in exotic nuclei

The nuclear ground-state wavefunction has a very marked admixture of high-momentum components, which are now understood to originate from short-range nucleon-nucleon (NN) correlations (SRC). Indeed, the experimental evidence points to the existence, at short distances, of strongly correlated neutron-proton pairs much like they are in the deuteron or in free scattering processes. As it moves through the nuclear medium, a "bare" nucleon in the presence of the NN interaction becomes "dressed" with a quasi-deuteron cloud, about 20% of the time. Despite this small percentage (~20%), SRCs have significant implications to our understanding of long-standing puzzles in nuclear physics and to our understanding of neutron matter. The qualitative arguments above, suggest that quasi-free scattering (QFS) of deuterons could offer a sensitive probe to examine these concepts.

We will perform an experiment at the R3B setup at GSI/FAIR to measure at the (p,pd) quasi-free scattering cross section for knocking out a deuteron in 10,14,16C relative to 12C.