1202.5317 (H. Baghdasaryan et al.)

A comparison of forward and backward pp pair knockout in 3He(e,e'pp)n    [PDF]

H. Baghdasaryan, L. B. Weinstein, J. M. Laget, the CLAS Collaboration

Measuring nucleon-nucleon Short Range Correlations (SRC) has been a goal of
the nuclear physics community for many years. They are an important part of the
nuclear wavefunction, accounting for almost all of the high-momentum strength.
They are closely related to the EMC effect. While their overall probability has
been measured, measuring their momentum distributions is more difficult. In
order to determine the best configuration for studying SRC momentum
distributions, we measured the $^3$He$(e,e'pp)n$ reaction, looking at events
with high momentum protons ($p_p > 0.35$ GeV/c) and a low momentum neutron
($p_n< 0.2$ GeV/c). We examined two angular configurations: either both protons
emitted forward or one proton emitted forward and one backward (with respect to
the momentum transfer, $\vec q$). The measured relative momentum distribution
of the events with one forward and one backward proton was much closer to the
calculated initial-state $pp$ relative momentum distribution, indicating that
this is the preferred configuration for measuring SRC.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5317