Deuteron Electro-Disintegration at Very High Missing Momenta

TL;DR

This paper proposes a high-energy experiment to measure deuteron electro-disintegration at large missing momenta, aiming to explore short-range nuclear correlations with minimal final state interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a new experimental measurement at high missing momenta to study short-range correlations, expanding the kinematic range of previous experiments.

Findings

First data at this high missing momentum regime

Validation of eikonal approximation at these energies

Potential insights into short-range nuclear structure

Abstract

We propose to measure the D(e,e'p) cross section at $Q^2 = 4.25$ (GeV/c)$^2$ and $x_{bj} = 1.35$ for missing momenta ranging from $p_m = 0.5$ GeV/c to $p_m = 1.0$ GeV/c expanding the range of missing momenta explored in the Hall A experiment (E01-020). At these energy and momentum transfers, calculations based on the eikonal approximation have been shown to be valid and recent experiments indicated that final state interactions are relatively small and possibly independent of missing momenta. This experiment will provide for the first time data in this kinematic regime which are of fundamental importance to the study of short range correlations and high density fluctuations in nuclei. The proposed experiment could serve as a commissioning experiment of the new SHMS together with the HMS in Hall C. A total beam time of 21 days is requested.