Electroinduced two-nucleon knockout and correlations in nuclei

Abstract A model to calculate cross sections for electroinduced two-nucleon emission from finite nuclei is presented. Short-range correlations in the wave functions and meson-exchange contributions to the photoabsorption process are implemented. Effects of the short-range correlations are studied with the aid of a perturbation expansion method with various choices of the Jastrow correlation function. The model is used to investigate the relative importance of the different reaction mechanisms contributing to the A(e,e′pn) and A(e,e′pp) process. Representative examples for the target nuclei 12C and 16O and for kinematical conditions accessible with contemporary high-duty cycle electron accelerators are presented. A procedure is outlined to calculate the two-nucleon knockout contribution to the semi-exclusive (e,e′p) cross section. Using this technique we investigate to what extent far semi-exclusive (e,e′p) reactions can be used to detect high-momentum components in the nuclear spectral function.