The deuteron electro-disintegration $D(e,e'p)n$ experiment aims to measure D(e,e'p)n cross sections at high $Q^2$, $x_{Bj}~1$, and missing momenta $p_m>600$ MeV/c with great statistical precision. To obtain a greater understanding of the strong nuclear force, we must probe the nucleus at sub-fermi distances where the nucleons overlap. In this region, the nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction potential is not well understood as there is a lack of experimental data for missing momenta beyond $500$ Mev/c 1. The deuteron is the simplest bound NN system, which makes it the perfect starting point for understanding the strong nuclear force, especially at extremely short distances. This experiment was conducted in Experimental Hall C of Jefferson Lab (JLab). JLab houses the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF). CEBAF's 11 GeV electron beam is incident on a liquid deuterium target, and the recoil proton and electron are detected by Hall C's High Momentum Spectrometer (HMS) and Super High Momentum Spectrometer (SHMS), respectively. The recoil neutron momentum, i.e., the missing momentum, is then reconstructed from the reaction's kinematics. This ideal reaction, in which the momentum of the nucleons can be directly correlated, is described by the plane wave impulse approximation (PWIA). Other short-range correlation processes (final state interactions (FSI), meson exchange currents (MEC), and isobar configurations (IC)) can be suppressed under carefully selected kinematics 1. Previous results published by C.Yero et. al. 2 showed a discrepancy between the data and the non-relativistic theoretical models in the large missing momentum regime. In the spring of 2023, we took data up to even higher missing momenta, which will allow us to extend the cross-section domain beyond 1.0 GeV with great statistics. The data is currently being analyzed and should be ideal for testing fully relativistic deuteron wave function models.
I would like to thank my professors Werner Boeglin and Misak Sargsian, as well as my mentor Carlos Yero. This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics under the contract DE-SC0013620.
