Speaker
Description
Nuclear Short Range Correlations (SRCs) are pairs of nucleons which exist at short relative distance and high relative momentum within the nucleus. These SRC pairs have significant impacts on nuclear structure and have been extensively studied using hard quasi-elastic electron-scattering data. Interpretations of these hard scattering data rely heavily on our understanding of reaction mechanisms at play in electron-scattering measurements, as well as assumptions of of factorization between the reaction and the nuclear ground-state. In fall of 2021, our collaboration took data in Hall D of Jefferson Lab, using a real photon beam incident on nuclear targets to independently measure the properties of nuclear SRCs. Here we present the measurement of SRC breakup events in this data using quasi-elastic ρ- meson photoproduction from correlated neutrons in deuterium, helium, and carbon nuclei, along with comparisons to the GCF predictions. We use the ab-initio calculations to show consistency between the electron- and photo-scattering measurements; in this, we provide evidence for the universality of SRC properties across reactions, showing that several different hard reactions proceeding on correlated nucleons may be consistently explained using a single model.
