Probing high-momentum protons and neutrons in neutron-rich nuclei

Duer, Mike

doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0400-z

Title: Probing high-momentum protons and neutrons in neutron-rich nuclei

Journal Article · 13 August 2018 · Nature (London)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0400-z · OSTI ID:1468654

Duer, Mike ^[1]

Tel Aviv Univ., Ramat Aviv (Israel). et al.; The George Washington University

The atomic nucleus is one of the densest and most complex quantum-mechanical systems in nature. Nuclei account for nearly all the mass of the visible Universe. The properties of individual nucleons (protons and neutrons) in nuclei can be probed by scattering a high-energy particle from the nucleus and detecting this particle after it scatters, often also detecting an additional knocked-out proton. Analysis of electron- and proton-scattering experiments suggests that some nucleons in nuclei form close-proximity neutron–proton pairs with high nucleon momentum, greater than the nuclear Fermi momentum. However, how excess neutrons in neutron-rich nuclei form such close-proximity pairs remains unclear. In this study we measure protons and, for the first time, neutrons knocked out of medium-to-heavy nuclei by high-energy electrons and show that the fraction of high-momentum protons increases markedly with the neutron excess in the nucleus, whereas the fraction of high-momentum neutrons decreases slightly. This effect is surprising because in the classical nuclear shell model, protons and neutrons obey Fermi statistics, have little correlation and mostly fill independent energy shells. These high-momentum nucleons in neutron-rich nuclei are important for understanding nuclear parton distribution functions (the partial momentum distribution of the constituents of the nucleon) and changes in the quark distributions of nucleons bound in nuclei (the EMC effect). They are also relevant for the interpretation of neutrino-oscillation measurements and understanding of neutron-rich systems such as neutron stars.

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Research Organization:: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); George Washington Univ., Washington, DC (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Mississippi State Univ., Mississippi State, MS (United States); Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States); Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, VA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Chilean Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT); Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique (CEA); Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN); Israel Science Foundation (ISF); National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea; National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP) (SC-26); United Kingdom Science and Technology Facilities Council

Contributing Organization:: The CLAS Collaboration

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231; AC02-06CH11357; AC05-06OR23177; FG02-07ER41528; SC0016583

OSTI ID:: 1468654

Report Number(s):: DOE/OR/23177--4536; JLAB-PHY--18-2785; PII: 400

Journal Information:: Nature (London), Journal Name: Nature (London) Journal Issue: 7720 Vol. 560; ISSN 0028-0836

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Direct Observation of Proton-Neutron Short-Range Correlation Dominance in Heavy Nuclei Duer, M.; Schmidt, A.; Pybus, J. R. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 122, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.122.172502	journal	May 2019
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Direct Observation of Proton-Neutron Short-Range Correlation Dominance in Heavy Nuclei Duer, M.; Schmidt, A.; Pybus, J. R. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1810.05343	text	January 2018
Relativistic self-energy decomposition of nuclear symmetry energy and equation of state of neutron matter within QCD sum rules Cai, Bao-Jun; Chen, Lie-Wen arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1903.10430	text	January 2019

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