Information on the 3He(e,e'pp)
experiment at AmPS
Nucleon-nucleon correlations, especially those of short-range
character, can be well studied with electron-induced two-nucleon
knockout reactions at intermediate electron energies. However, these
reactions are not only driven by one-body currents, i.e., coupling of
the virtual photon to one of the nucleons of a correlated pair, a
process that directly probes NN-correlations. Also two-body
currents, resulting from intermediate Delta-excitation and coupling
to an exchanged meson, as well as final state interactions, influence
the experimental cross section.
Recent experiments
[Ond98]
have shown that the
16O(e,e'pp)14C
reaction is dominated by the
knockout of strongly correlated proton pairs, if the
14C
nucleus is left in the ground state or in the first
2+ state.
Since continuum Faddeev calculations employing realistic
NN-potentials are currently available for the
three-body system
[Gol95],
exclusive measurements of the
three-body breakup of 3He
offer the opportunity to compare data to
microscopic model predictions. The relative importance of
competing two-proton knockout mechanisms can be investigated by
varying the energy and momentum of the virtual photon, as was done in
this experiment.
For more information on 3He(e,e'pp) activities contact
davidg@nikhef.nl
.