Short-range correlations and momentum distributions in mirror nuclei 3H and 3He

TL;DR

This study microscopically investigates short-range correlations and momentum distributions in mirror nuclei 3H and 3He, revealing enhanced proton-neutron SRC pairs consistent with recent experimental data.

Contribution

It provides a detailed microscopic analysis of SRCs in 3H and 3He using realistic interactions and Gaussian expansion method, highlighting differences in momentum distributions.

Findings

pn-SRC pairs are significantly more prevalent than nn or pp pairs.

Results align with recent Jefferson Lab experimental observations.

Differences in nucleon momentum distributions are quantitatively analyzed.

Abstract

Motivated by recent high-energy electron and $\rm ^3H$ and $\rm ^3He$ nuclei scattering experiment in Jefferson Lab (Nature 609, 41 (2022)), the short-range correlations (SRCs) between nucleon pairs for 3-nucleon systems are microscopically studied using realistic $NN$ 2-body interaction and two-Gaussian type $NNN$ 3-body interaction. The wave functions of both $\rm ^3H$ and $\rm ^3He$ are obtained by solving 3-body Schr\"{o}dinger equations using Gaussian expansion method (GEM). The differences of one-nucleon and nucleon-nucleon momentum distributions between $\rm ^3H$ and $\rm ^3He$ are analyzed in detail. The results show that the percentages of $pn$-SRC pairs are significantly enhanced as compared with those of $nn(pp)$-SRC ones in $\rm ^3H$ and $\rm ^3He$ nuclei, which is consistent with the experimental findings.