Comparison of recoil polarization in the [formula omitted] process for protons extracted from s and p shells

Abstract

We present the first measurements of the double ratio of the polarization-transfer components (Px′/Pz′)p/(Px′/Pz′)s for knock-out protons from the s and p shells in C12 measured by the C12(e→,e′p→) reaction in quasi-elastic kinematics. The data are compared to theoretical predictions in the relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation. Our results show that the differences between s- and p-shell protons, observed when compared at the same initial momentum (missing momentum), largely disappear when the comparison is done at the same proton virtuality. We observe no difference in medium modifications between protons from the s and p shells with the same virtuality in spite of the large differences in the respective nuclear densities.