Two-nucleon short-range correlations in light nuclei
Name
1241697759-MIT.pdf
Size
33.96 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
bb798e98f0b93c874cc837b0b4cf16b2
Author(s)
Cruz Torres, Reynier.
Advisor(s)
Or Hen.
Date Issued
2020
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Understanding the nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction is a fundamental task in nuclear physics, as NN-interaction models are a crucial input to modern nuclear structure calculations. While great progress has been made toward understanding this interaction, the available state-of-the-art models predict significantly different behaviors at short distances and high momenta (scale-and-scheme dependence), where two-nucleon Short-Range Correlations (SRCs) dominate the nuclear wave function. Thus, SRCs are a unique tool to constrain the NN interaction and vice versa. SRCs are naturally-occurring high-local-density NN pairs that, as a result of their short-distance (r /~ & k[subscript F]~~ 250 MeV/c). The study of SRCs also has significant implications for other fields, such as the astrophysics of neutron stars and the behavior of cold atomic gasses. This thesis describes experimental and phenomenological studies of the short-distance / high-momentum structure of the NN interaction through the study of SRCs and vice versa. Experimentally, I report the first measurement of the ³He and ³H(e, e'p) reactions in Hall A of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in kinematics in which the measured cross sections should be sensitive to the underlying nucleon momentum distributions in the range 40 to 500 MeV/c. The resulting cross-section ratios and absolute cross sections were compared to momentum-distribution ratios and precise cross-section calculations respectively. Phenomenologically, I report the generalization of the Contact Formalism (GCF) to nuclear systems, which exploits scale separation and universality to describe nucleons at short distances and high momenta.
Description
Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Physics, May, 2020
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-205).
Subjects
Physics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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