GAMMA-RAY SPECTRAL CLUES TO FLEETING PARTNERS INSIDE NUCLEI
XU Junhuai;XIAO Zhigang;
Abstract:
Nuclei are not bags of static balls.Most protons and neutrons move under the overall nuclear environment,but a small fraction can form fleeting close-range partners and carry unusually large momenta.These short-range correlations cannot be photographed directly.Instead,they leave statistical clues in the high-energy gamma-ray spectrum emitted at the earliest stage of a heavy-ion collision:faster neutron-proton encounters are more likely to produce energetic gamma rays,hardening the spectral tail.A recent ~(124)Sn+~(124)Sn experiment at 25 MeV per nucleon used this idea,together with transport-model comparisons,detector calibration,and background checks,to infer that about 20% of nucleons in ~(124)Sn belong to short-rangecorrelation-related high-momentum components.The result provides a complementary gamma-ray route for studying short-distance motion inside nuclei.
Key Words: short-range correlation;high-momentum tail;bremsstrahlung gamma ray;heavy-ion collision
Foundation: 国家自然科学基金项目(12335008)
Authors: XU Junhuai;XIAO Zhigang;
DOI: 10.27024/j.wlygc.2026.06.29.is
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