What densities can be effectively probed in quasifree single-nucleon knockout reactions?

Original · EN

We address the issue whether quasifree single-nucleon knockout measurements carry sufficient information about the nuclear interior. To this end, we present comparisons of the reaction probability densities for A(e,e'p) and A(p,2p) in quasifree kinematics for the target nuclei ⁴He, ¹²C, ⁵⁶Fe, and ²⁰⁸Pb. We adopt a comprehensive framework based on the impulse approximation and on a relativized extension of Glauber multiple-scattering reaction theory in which the medium effects related to short-range correlations (SRC) are implemented. It is demonstrated that SRC weaken the effect of attenuation. For light target nuclei, both the quasifree (p,2p) and (e,e'p) can probe average densities of the same order as nuclear saturation density ρ₀. For heavy nuclei like ²⁰⁸Pb, the probed average densities are smaller than 0.1ρ₀ and the (e,e'p) reaction is far more efficient in probing the bulk regions than (p,2p).