Tensor correlations measured in 3He(e,e' pp)n

Phys Rev Lett. 2010 Nov 26;105(22):222501. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.222501. Epub 2010 Nov 24.

Abstract

We have measured the 3He(e,e' pp)n reaction at an incident energy of 4.7 GeV over a wide kinematic range. We identified spectator correlated pp and pn nucleon pairs by using kinematic cuts and measured their relative and total momentum distributions. This is the first measurement of the ratio of pp to pn pairs as a function of pair total momentum p(tot). For pair relative momenta between 0.3 and 0.5 GeV/c, the ratio is very small at low p(tot) and rises to approximately 0.5 at large p(tot). This shows the dominance of tensor over central correlations at this relative momentum.