10 research outputs found
Recent observation of short range nucleon correlations in nuclei and their implications for the structure of nuclei and neutron stars
Novel processes probing the decay of nucleus after removal of a nucleon with
momentum larger than Fermi momentum by hard probes finally proved unambiguously
the evidence for long sought presence of short-range correlations (SRCs) in
nuclei. In combination with the analysis of large , A(e,e')X processes at
they allow us to conclude that (i) practically all nucleons with momenta
300 MeV/c belong to SRCs, consisting mostly of two nucleons, ii)
probability of such SRCs in medium and heavy nuclei is , iii) a fast
removal of such nucleon practically always leads to emission of correlated
nucleon with approximately opposite momentum, iv) proton removal from
two-nucleon SRCs in 90% of cases is accompanied by a removal of a neutron and
only in 10% by a removal of another proton. We explain that observed absolute
probabilities and the isospin structure of two nucleon SRCs confirm the
important role that tensor forces play in internucleon interactions. We find
also that the presence of SRCs requires modifications of the Landau Fermi
liquid approach to highly asymmetric nuclear matter and leads to a
significantly faster cooling of cold neutron stars with neutrino cooling
operational even for . The effect is even stronger for the
hyperon stars. Theoretical challenges raised by the discovered dominance of
nucleon degrees of freedom in SRCs and important role of the spontaneously
broken chiral symmetry in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) in resolving them are
considered. We also outline directions for future theoretical and experimental
studies of the physics relevant for SRCs.Comment: 74 pages. Review article, updated version to be published in
International Journal of Modern Physics