Journal Article

Momentum sharing in imbalanced Fermi systems

Bedlinskiy, I., Kim, A., Pogorelko, O., Baltzell, N. A., Cao, T., Dugger, M., Crede, V., Mineeva, T., Lenisa, P., Phelps, W., Brooks, W. K., Fegan, S., De Vita, R., Ireland, D. G., Forest, T., Rosner, G., Fedotov, G., Dupre, R., Jo, H. S., Sargsian, M., Jiang, H., Biselli, A., Higinbotham, D. W., Adhikari, K. P., Rimal, D., Levine, W. I., Shneor, R., Markov, N., Tkachenko, S., Klein, F. J., Wood, M. H., Alaoui, A. El, Holtrop, M., Ilieva, Y., Niculescu, G., Osipenko, M., Joo, K., Paremuzyan, R., Bertozzi, W., Ripani, M., Stoler, P., Hyde, C. E., Walford, N. K., Cole, P. L., Vlassov, A. V., Ghandilyan, Y., Stepanyan, S., Keller, D., Hafidi, K., Asryan, G., Schott, D., Nadel-Turonski, P., Battaglieri, M., Garillon, B., Protopopescu, D., Sokhan, D., Gevorgyan, N., Schumacher, R. A., Korover, I., Weinstein, L. B., Wei, X., Kuhn, S. E., Mokeev, V., Ishkanov, B. I., Arrington, J., Procureur, S., Fassi, L. El, Doughty, D., Gilfoyle, G. P., Sabatié, F., Voutier, E., Beck, S. May-Tal, Colaneri, L., Isupov, E. L., D’Angelo, A., Ritchie, B. G., Smith, G. D., Djalali, C., Zana, L., Pappalardo, L. L., Hen, O., Garcon, M., Pisano, S., Ungaro, M., Niccolai, S., Avaki

2014

Overview

The atomic nucleus is composed of two different kinds of fermions: protons and neutrons. If the protons and neutrons did not interact, the Pauli exclusion principle would force the majority of fermions (usually neutrons) to have a higher average momentum. Our high-energy electron-scattering measurements using 12C, 27Al, 56Fe, and 208Pb targets show that even in heavy, neutron-rich nuclei, short-range interactions between the fermions form correlated high-momentum neutron-proton pairs. Thus, in neutron-rich nuclei, protons have a greater probability than neutrons to have momentum greater than the Fermi momentum. This finding has implications ranging from nuclear few-body systems to neutron stars and may also be observable experimentally in two-spin–state, ultracold atomic gas systems.

• Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science,The American Association for the Advancement of Science,American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS),AAAS
• Subject: aluminum / Atomic physics / carbon / Correlation analysis / electron scattering / Fermi / Fermions / lead / momentum / Neutron stars / Neutrons / Nuclear Experiment / Nuclei / Pauli exclusion principle / Physics / probability / Protons / Quantum physics / quark / Scattering / stable isotopes / ultra-cold atomic gas systems