Probing neutron correlations through nuclear break-up

TL;DR

This paper develops a quantum transport model to study how initial nucleon correlations affect nuclear break-up, revealing that correlations significantly influence emitted particle angles and could help infer nucleon interactions.

Contribution

It introduces an extended quantum transport theory that incorporates short-range pairing and collisions to analyze nuclear break-up from correlated states.

Findings

Initial correlations strongly affect emission angles.

Nuclear break-up can reveal residual nucleon interactions.

Model shows qualitative agreement with expected correlation effects.

Abstract

The effect of initial correlations between nucleons on the nuclear break-up mechanism is studied. A quantum transport theory which extends standard mean-field approach is developed to incorporate short range pairing correlation as well as direct nucleon-nucleon collisions. A time evolution of the nuclear break-up from a correlated system leading to the emission of two particles to the continuum is performed. We show that initial correlations have strong influence on relative angles between particles emitted in coincidence. The present qualitative study indicates that nuclear break-up might be a tool to infer the residual interaction between nucleons in the nuclear medium.