Dependence of two-nucleon momentum densities on total pair momentum

Abstract

Two-nucleon momentum distributions are calculated for the ground states of 3He and 4He as a function of the nucleons' relative and total momenta. We use variational Monte Carlo wave functions derived from a realistic Hamiltonian with two- and three-nucleon potentials. The momentum distribution of pp pairs is found to be much smaller than that of pn pairs for values of the relative momentum in the range (300--500) MeV/c and vanishing total momentum. However, as the total momentum increases to 400 MeV/c, the ratio of pp to pn pairs in this relative momentum range grows and approaches the limit 1/2 for 3He and 1/4 for 4He, corresponding to the ratio of pp to pn pairs in these nuclei. This behavior should be easily observable in two-nucleon knock-out processes, such as A(e,e'pN).

3 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Probing Cold Dense Nuclear Matter
• Evidence for the Strong Dominance of Proton-Neutron Correlations in Nuclei
• Tensor Forces and the Ground-State Structure of Nuclei

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Progress in understanding short-range structure in nuclei: an experimental perspective
• Quantifying short-range correlations in nuclei
• Revealing the short-range structure of the "mirror nuclei" ${}^3$H and ${}^3$He
• Investigation of the Exclusive ^{3}He(e,e'pn)p Reaction
• Short-range correlations and momentum distributions in mirror nuclei 3H and 3He
• Experimental Study of Bremsstrahlung Gamma Ray Emission and Short-Range Correlations in ${}^{124}$Sn+${}^{124}$Sn Collisions at 25 MeV/u