Counting the number of correlated pairs in a nucleus

Abstract

We suggest that the number of correlated nucleon pairs in an arbitrary nucleus can be estimated by counting the number of proton-neutron, proton-proton, and neutron-neutron pairs residing in a relative $S$ state. We present numerical calculations of those amounts for the nuclei $^{4}$He, $^{9}$Be, $^{12}$C, $^{27}$Al, $^{40}$Ca, $^{48}$Ca, $^{56}$Fe, $^{63}$Cu, $^{108}$Ag, and $^{197}$Au. The results are used to predict the values of the ratios of the per-nucleon electron-nucleus inelastic scattering cross section to the deuteron in the kinematic regime where correlations dominate.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure