Momentum and energy distributions of nucleons in finite nuclei due to short-range correlations

The influence of short-range correlations on the momentum and energy distribution of nucleons in nuclei is evaluated assuming a realistic meson-exchange potential for the nucleon-nucleon interaction. Using the Green-function approach the calculations are performed directly for the finite nucleus O16 avoiding the local density approximation and its reference to studies of infinite nuclear matter. The nucleon-nucleon correlations induced by the short-range and tensor components of the interaction yield an enhancement of the momentum distribution at high momenta as compared to the Hartree-Fock description. These high-momentum components should be observed mainly in nucleon knockout reactions like (e,e'p) leaving the final nucleus in a state of high excitation energy. Our analysis also demonstrates that non-negligible contributions to the momentum distribution should be found in partial waves which are unoccupied in the simple shell model. The treatment of correlations beyond the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approximation also yields an improvement for the calculated ground-state properties.