Progress in understanding short-range structure in nuclei: an experimental perspective

Abstract

High-energy electron scattering is a clean and precise probe for measurements of hadronic and nuclear structure, with a key role in understanding the role of high-momentum nucleons (and quarks) in nuclei. Jefferson Lab has dramatically expanded our understanding of the high-momentum nucleons generated by short-range correlations, providing sufficient insight to model much of their impact on nuclear structure in neutron stars, and in low- to medium-energy scattering observables including neutrino oscillation measurements. These short-range correlations also appear to be related to the modification of the quark distributions in nuclei, and efforts to improve our understanding of the internal structure of these short-distance and high-momentum configurations in nuclei will provide important input on a wide range of high-energy observables.