Imaging two-body correlations in atomic nuclei via low- and high-energy processes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that two-particle correlations in ultra-relativistic ion collisions can effectively image nuclear ground states, providing new insights into two-nucleon correlations in atomic nuclei.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to image nuclear ground states using high-energy collision data, contrasting with traditional low-energy approaches.

Findings

Two-particle correlations effectively image nuclear ground states.

High-energy observables provide meaningful insights into two-nucleon correlations.

Traditional deformation parameter interpretations are shown to be inoperative.

Abstract

Characterizing the correlated behavior of nucleons inside atomic nuclei constitutes a long-standing challenge, both experimentally and theoretically. It has recently been understood that two-particle correlations in the azimuthal distribution of final hadrons emitted in ultra-relativistic ultra-central ion-ion collisions can be used to quantify ground-state two-body correlations. Performing systematic ab initio nuclear structure calculations of light nuclei, we demonstrate that such an observable does provide a meaningful imaging of nuclear ground states, naturally leading to a robust interpretation of the various categories of two-nucleon correlations at play. This is at variance with the low-energy approach relying on Kumar operators whose traditional interpretation in terms of deformation parameters is shown to be inoperative. A future interesting development will consist of targeting specific three-particle correlations to isolate three-nucleon correlations in which additional nuclear structure information of interest leave their fingerprint.