Short-range correlations and the charge density

Sophisticated high-energy and large momentum-transfer scattering experiments combined with ab-initio calculations can reveal the short-distance behavior of nucleon pairs in nuclei. On an opposite energy and resolution scale, elastic electron scattering experiments are used to extract the charge density and charge radius of different nuclei. We show that even though the charge density has no obvious connection with nuclear short-range correlations, it can be used to extract properties of such correlations. This is accomplished by using the nuclear contact formalism to derive a relation between the charge density and the proton–proton nuclear contacts that describe the probability of two protons being at close proximity. With this relation, the values of the proton–proton contacts are extracted for various nuclei using only the nuclear charge density and a solution of the two-nucleon Schroedinger equation as inputs. For symmetric nuclei, the proton–neutron contacts can also be extracted from the charge density. Good agreement is obtained with previous extractions of the nuclear contacts. These results imply that one can predict (with reasonably good accuracy) the results of high-energy and large momentum-transfer electron-scattering experiments and ab-initio calculations of high momentum tails using only experimental data of elastic scattering experiments.