Speaker
Description
Short-Range Correlations (SRCs) are transient, high-density configurations within nuclei, where a proton and neutron approach distances comparable to the nucleon radius, forming strongly interacting, high-momentum pairs. SRCs provide critical insight into the transition region between two fundamental descriptions of nuclear matter: the low-resolution picture based on nucleons and their interactions, and the high-resolution regime governed by quarks and gluons. Recent electron-scattering experiments at Jefferson Lab have established SRCs as a central feature of nuclear structure, impacting our understanding of nucleon-nucleon interactions, nuclear binding, and many-body dynamics.
The SRC program at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) complements these studies by using 3–4 GeV/c per nucleon carbon-12 beams incident on a cryogenic liquid hydrogen target. Two dedicated experiments at the BM@N setup were optimized to probe SRCs via hard quasi-elastic (p,2p) knockout reactions in inverse kinematics. We present the first physics results from the 2022 measurement of the 12C(p,2p)11B reaction, offering new insights into SRC dynamics in nuclei. Looking ahead, the next phase of the program will utilize a tensor-polarized deuteron beam to explore spin-dependent aspects of SRCs, further advancing our understanding of the nuclear force at short distances.
