Eur. Phys. J. A (2016) 52: 298
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2016-16298-3

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Differential cross section measurement of the ¹²C(e,e’pp)¹⁰Be_g.s. reaction

¹ Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, HR-10002, Zagreb, Croatia
² Institut für Kernphysik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, D-55099, Mainz, Germany
³ Department of Physics, University of Surrey, GU2 7XH, Guildford, UK
⁴ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Pavia and INFN, Sezione di Pavia, Via A. Bassi 6, I-27100, Pavia, Italy

^* e-mail: bosnar@phy.hr

Received: 13 June 2016
Accepted: 12 August 2016
Published online: 27 September 2016

Abstract

The differential cross section was measured for the ¹²C(e,e’pp)¹⁰Be _g.s. reaction at energy and momentum transfers of 163MeV and 198MeV/c, respectively. The measurement was performed at the Mainz Microtron by using two high-resolution magnetic spectrometers of the A1 Collaboration and a newly developed silicon detector telescope. The overall resolution of the detector system was sufficient to distinguish the ground state from the first excited state in ¹⁰ Be. We chose a super-parallel geometry that minimizes the effect of two-body currents and emphasizes the effect of nucleon-nucleon correlations. The obtained differential cross section is compared to the theoretical results of the Pavia reaction code in which different processes leading to two-nucleon knockout are accounted for microscopically. The comparison shows a strong sensitivity to nuclear-structure input and the measured cross section is seen to be dominated by the interplay between long- and short-range nucleon-nucleon correlations. Microscopic calculations based on the ab initio self-consistent Green’s function method give a reasonable description of the experimental cross section.