Progress in understanding short-range structure in nuclei: an experimental perspective

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent experimental advances in high-energy electron scattering that have deepened our understanding of short-range nucleon correlations in nuclei and their implications for nuclear and quark structure.

Contribution

It highlights new experimental insights into short-range correlations and their role in nuclear structure, impacting models of neutron stars and high-energy scattering observables.

Findings

Enhanced understanding of high-momentum nucleons in nuclei

Insights into the relationship between short-range correlations and quark distributions

Implications for modeling nuclear effects in neutrino oscillations

Abstract

High-energy electron scattering is a clean and precise probe for measurements of hadronic and nuclear structure, with a key role in understanding the role of high-momentum nucleons (and quarks) in nuclei. Jefferson Lab has dramatically expanded our understanding of the high-momentum nucleons generated by short-range correlations, providing sufficient insight to model much of their impact on nuclear structure in neutron stars, and in low- to medium-energy scattering observables including neutrino oscillation measurements. These short-range correlations also appear to be related to the modification of the quark distributions in nuclei, and efforts to improve our understanding of the internal structure of these short-distance and high-momentum configurations in nuclei will provide important input on a wide range of high-energy observables.