Speaker
Description
Nucleon short-range correlations (SRCs) and the associated high-momentum tails (HMTs) provide a unique window into the short-range dynamics of nuclear systems and play an important role in determining the equation of state (EOS) of dense, neutron-rich matter. In this talk, I will review recent progress in understanding SRCs and their implications for the EOS of isospin-asymmetric nuclear matter. After a brief overview of the microscopic origin and universal features of SRCs, including the dominance of neutron–proton tensor correlations and the resulting isospin dependence of nucleon momentum distributions, I will discuss how SRC-induced HMTs modify both the kinetic and interaction contributions to the nuclear EOS. Particular emphasis will be placed on the suppression of the kinetic symmetry energy, deviations from the conventional isospin-parabolic approximation, and their implications for dense matter. I will then highlight the impact of SRCs on several areas of nuclear physics and astrophysics, including neutron-star structure and evolution, as well as heavy-ion collisions. Finally, I will briefly discuss several emerging directions and open questions in the study of SRCs and dense matter.