Systematic study of large-momentum distribution in nuclei with the operator product expansion

TL;DR

This paper applies the operator product expansion combined with pionless effective field theory to analyze the short-range structure of nuclei, specifically examining the nucleon momentum distribution in the deuteron to test theoretical predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic approach to separate short-range and long-range nuclear interactions using OPE and EFT, improving the understanding of nuclear short-range structure.

Findings

Wilson coefficients derived from matching OPE with nuclear potentials

Validation of OPE predictions against nucleon momentum distribution data

Framework for including higher-order EFT potentials and operators

Abstract

The operator product expansion (OPE) is applied in conjunction with Pionless effective field theory to study the short-rang structure of nuclei. By matching the OPE with the selected nuclear potentials for nucleon-nucleon scattering states, we obtain the Wilson coefficients. The nucleon momentum distribution in the deuteron is then used to test the OPE against the predictions of these nuclear potentials. In order to achieve a systematic separation of short-range and long-range interactions, we discuss how the OPE approximation can be improved by including higher-order EFT potentials and higher-dimension local operators.