Searching for three-nucleon short-range correlations

Abstract

Three nucleon short range correlations~(SRCs) are one of the most elusive structures in nuclei. Their observation and the subsequent study of their internal makeup will have a significant impact on our understanding of the dynamics of super-dense nuclear matter which exists at the cores of neutron stars. We discuss the kinematic conditions and observables that are most favorable for probing 3N-SRCs in inclusive electro-nuclear processes and make a prediction for a quadratic dependence of the probabilities of finding a nucleon in 2N- and 3N- SRCs. We demonstrate that this prediction is consistent with the limited high energy experimental data available, suggesting that we have observed, for the first time, 3N-SRCs in electro-nuclear processes. Our analysis enables us to extract $a_3(A,Z)$, the probability of finding 3N-SRCs in nuclei relative to the A=3 system.