TY  - JOUR
AU  - XU, Junhuai
AU  - XIAO, Zhigang
PY  - 2026
TI  - GAMMA-RAY SPECTRAL CLUES TO FLEETING PARTNERS INSIDE NUCLEI
JO  - Physics and Engineering
SN  - 1009-7104
SP  - 17
EP  - 21
VL  - 46
IS  - 5
AB  - Nuclei are not bags of static balls. Most protons and neutrons move under the overall nuclear environment, but a small fraction can form fleeting close-range partners and carry unusually large momenta. These short-range correlations cannot be photographed directly. Instead, they leave statistical clues in the high-energy gamma-ray spectrum emitted at the earliest stage of a heavy-ion collision: faster neutron-proton encounters are more likely to produce energetic gamma rays, hardening the spectral tail. A recent 124Sn+124Sn experiment at 25MeV per nucleon used this idea, together with transport-model comparisons, detector calibration, and background checks, to infer that about 20% of nucleons in 124Sn belong to short-range-correlation-related high-momentum components. The result provides a complementary gamma-ray route for studying short-distance motion inside nuclei.
UR  - https://doi.org/10.26599/PHYS.2026.9320503
DO  - 10.26599/PHYS.2026.9320503