Nucleon-nucleon momentum correlation function for light nuclei Original Research Article

Nucleon-nucleon momentum correlation function have been presented for nuclear reactions with neutron-rich or proton-rich projectiles using a nuclear transport theory, namely Isospin-Dependent Quantum Molecular Dynamics model. The relationship between the binding energy of projectiles and the strength of proton-neutron correlation function at small relative momentum has been explored, while proton-proton correlation function shows its sensitivity to the proton density distribution. Those results show that nucleon-nucleon correlation function is useful to reflect some features of the neutron- or proton-halo nuclei and therefore provide a potential tool for the studies of radioactive beam physics.