Systematic study of large-momentum distribution in nuclei with the operator product expansion

Abstract

The operator product expansion (OPE) is applied in conjunction with Pionless effective field theory to study the short-rang structure of nuclei. By matching the OPE with the selected nuclear potentials for nucleon-nucleon scattering states, we obtain the Wilson coefficients. The nucleon momentum distribution in the deuteron is then used to test the OPE against the predictions of these nuclear potentials. In order to achieve a systematic separation of short-range and long-range interactions, we discuss how the OPE approximation can be improved by including higher-order EFT potentials and higher-dimension local operators.