High-resolution momentum distributions from low-resolution wave functions

Abstract

Nucleon momentum distributions calculated with a common one-body operator vary with the resolution scale (and scheme) of the Hamiltonian used. For high-resolution potentials such as Argonne $v_{18}$ (AV18) there is a high-momentum tail, reflecting short-range correlations in the nuclear wave function, which is reduced or absent for softer, lower-resolution interactions. We explore if the similarity renormalization group (SRG) can be used to quantitatively reproduce the high-resolution distributions from variational Monte Carlo at all momenta using SRG-evolved operators and empirically fit single-particle orbitals rather than a full RG evolution of many-body wave functions. The goal of this approach is to enable calculations of high-resolution distributions for a wider range of nuclei as well as for other interactions, and provides connections to phenomenological analyses of experiments.

9 pages, 8 figures, updated with revisions

References in corpus (5)

• Similarity Renormalization Group for Nucleon-Nucleon Interactions
• Momentum sharing in imbalanced Fermi systems
• Modified Structure of Protons and Neutrons in Correlated Pairs
• Operator Evolution via the Similarity Renormalization Group I: The Deuteron
• Operator evolution from the similarity renormalization group and the Magnus expansion

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Universal laws for nuclear contacts
• Systematic study of large-momentum distribution in nuclei with the operator product expansion
• Nucleon momentum distributions of complex nuclei from inclusive electron scattering