Our group’s latest paper, published in Physical Review C, examines inclusive electron scattering (only the scattered electron is detected) from helium-3 (two protons and one neutron) and tritium (two neutrons and one proton) nuclei. Comparing the scattering cross sections from these two nuclei in large Bjorken-x regime has been suggested as a method for learning about the relative rates of proton-proton, proton-neutron, and neutron-neutron short-range correlations. In our paper, we consider the problem using a theoretical spectral function (a probability distribution for finding a nucleon in the nucleus with a given momentum and separation energy) and find some problems with that approach. One problem, shown in the lower panel of the figure above, is that even at large Bjorken-x (xB>1.5), there is still a large contribution to the cross section from low separation energy (Es) nucleons. This means that we aren’t learning purely about pairs of correlated nucleons, but also about single nucleons and/or triplets. Distinguishing between those scenarios will require looking in a larger nucleus, such as Helium-4.
