Selectivity of the 16O(e,e'pp) reaction to discrete final states

Abstract

Resolution of discrete final states in the ${}^{16}$O(e,e${}^{\prime }$pp)${}^{14}$C reaction may provide an interesting tool to discriminate between contributions from one- and two-body currents in this reaction. This is based on the observation that the $0^{+}$ ground state and first $2^{+}$ state of ${}^{14}$C are reached predominantly by the removal of a ${}^1{S}_0$ pair from ${}^{16}$O in this reaction, whereas other states mostly arise by the removal of a ${}^{3}P$ pair. This theoretical prediction has been supported recently by an analysis of the pair momentum distribution of the experimental data. In this paper we present results of reaction calculations performed in a direct knock-out framework where final-state interaction and one- and two-body currents are included. The two-nucleon overlap integrals are obtained from a calculation of the two-proton spectral function of ${}^{16}$O and include both long-range and short-range correlations. The kinematics chosen in the calculations is relevant for recent experiments at NIKHEF and Mainz.

Comments: 17 pages, LaTeX, 9 figures included