Nucleon Short-Range Correlations and High-Momentum Dynamics: Implications on the Equation of State of Dense Matter

Abstract

Nucleon short-range correlations (SRCs) and their high-momentum tails (HMTs) encode key short-range dynamics in nuclei and dense matter. This review provides a concise overview of SRC features relevant to the Equation of State (EOS) of isospin-asymmetric nuclear matter. We summarize empirical and theoretical properties of the single-nucleon momentum distribution $n(k)$, emphasizing the role of the neutron--proton tensor force, the dominance of correlated np pairs, and the enhancement of minority-species HMTs. Links to nucleon effective E-masses, quasi-deuteron components, and orbital entanglement are briefly noted. We examine how SRC-induced HMTs modify kinetic and potential contributions to the EOS in both non-relativistic and relativistic frameworks, including the softening of the kinetic symmetry energy and departures from the isospin parabolic approximation of asymmetric nuclear EOS. Sensitivity to high-momentum components and generalizations to arbitrary dimensions are also highlighted. Implications for heavy-ion reactions are summarized, including effects on particle yields, collective flows, deeply sub-threshold particle production and hard photon emission, driven by modified initial nucleon momentum distributions and abundant high relative-momentum np pairs during the reaction. Finally, we outline SRC-HMT consequences for neutron-star matter, covering proton fractions, tidal deformabilities, $Z$-factors, cooling, and the core--crust transition, as well as possible connections to dark-matter interactions in dense environments.