Translationally invariant shell model calculation of the quasielastic $(p,2p)$ process at intermediate relativistic energies

Abstract

Relativistic beams of heavy ions interacting with various nuclear targets allow to study a broad range of problems starting from nuclear equation of state to the traditional nuclear structure. Some questions which were impossible to answer heretofore -- can be addressed nowadays by using inverse kinematics. These includes the structure of short-lived nuclei and the precision study of exclusive channels with production of residual nuclei in certain quantum states. Theoretical understanding such processes is so far based on factorization models which combine the single-step amplitude of the reaction on a bound nucleon or nuclear cluster with a certain wave function of its relative motion with respect to the residual nucleus. The nuclear structure information is encoded in the spectroscopic amplitude, calculable within nuclear many-body theories. In this work, we use for this purpose the translationally-invariant shell model with configuration mixing and demonstrate that it successfully reproduces the single-differential and integrated cross sections of the quasielastic proton knockout, $^{12}\mbox{C}(p,2p)^{11}\mbox{B}$, with outgoing $^{11}$B in the ground state and low-lying excited states measured at GSI at 400 MeV/nucleon.