Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 346, Issue 6209, Pages 614-617Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1256785
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Funding
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
- National Science Foundation
- Israel Science Foundation
- Chilean Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica
- French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique
- French-American Cultural Exchange
- Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
- National Research Foundation of Korea
- UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council
- DOE, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics [DE-AC05-06OR23177]
- Division Of Physics
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1307340] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Physics
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1205782, 1306418, 1306737, 1306137] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/L005719/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- STFC [ST/L005719/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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The atomic nucleus is composed of two different kinds of fermions: protons and neutrons. If the protons and neutrons did not interact, the Pauli exclusion principle would force the majority of fermions (usually neutrons) to have a higher average momentum. Our high-energy electron-scattering measurements using C-12, Al-27, Fe-56, and Pb-208 targets show that even in heavy, neutron-rich nuclei, short-range interactions between the fermions form correlated high-momentum neutron-proton pairs. Thus, in neutron-rich nuclei, protons have a greater probability than neutrons to have momentum greater than the Fermi momentum. This finding has implications ranging from nuclear few-body systems to neutron stars and may also be observable experimentally in two-spin-state, ultracold atomic gas systems.
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