The reaction 16 O͑e, e 0 pp͒ 14 C has been studied at a transferred four-momentum ͑v, jqj͒ ͑210 MeV, 300 MeV͞c͒. The differential cross sections for the transitions to the ground state and the lowest excited states in 14 C were determined as a function of the momentum of the recoiling 14 C nucleus and the angle between the momentum of the proton emitted in the forward direction and the momentum transfer q. A comparison of the data to the results of calculations, performed with a microscopic model, shows clear signatures for short-range correlations in the 16 O ground state. [S0031-9007(98)07083-5] PACS numbers: 21.10. Pc, 21.30.Fe, 25.30.Fj, 27.20. + n In recent years, studies on short-range correlations (SRC) in nuclei have made striking progress. Microscopic many-body calculations in nuclear matter [1][2][3] and nuclei [4][5][6] have shown that SRC can account for a sizable fraction of the depletion in the occupancy of the valence orbits, observed in (e, e 0 p) proton knockout reactions [7]. Furthermore, these calculations predict an enhancement of the high-momentum components in the nucleon wave functions. Signatures of admixtures of highmomentum components in the nuclear ground state are expected to be found in the (e, e 0 p) reaction at high missing energies and in two-nucleon knockout (e, e 0 NN) studies [8,9]. Although experimentally more involved, the latter reactions have distinct advantages as a probe for studying SRC in nuclei.In an exclusive (e, e 0 NN) reaction both ejectiles are identified and the excitation energy of the residual nucleus is determined by energy conservation. This allows the measurement of the cross section for transitions to discrete states, as has recently been shown for the 16 O͑e, e 0 pp͒ 14 C reaction [10,11]. Furthermore, the reaction mechanism for two-nucleon knockout by virtual photons depends on the spin and isospin of the nucleon pair in the initial state. This implies that complementary information on SRC can be extracted from (e, e 0 pp) and (e, e 0 pn) reaction studies.In Ref.[10], we have presented the first results of a triple coincidence 16 O͑e, e 0 pp͒ 14 C experiment. The excitation energy spectrum up to 20 MeV of the residual nucleus 14 C and the corresponding missing-momentum distributions were compared with calculations performed within a simple factorization approximation of the cross section. In this Letter the differential cross sections are presented as a function of the excitation energy, the missing momentum, and the emission angle of the forward proton. The data are compared to the results of calculations performed with the microscopic model, recently described in Ref. [9].The measurements were performed with the high dutyfactor electron beam extracted from the pulse-stretcher AmPS at NIKHEF. The measurements were performed with 584 MeV electrons and the scattered electrons were detected at an angle of 26 ± . The central values of the energy transfer v and three-momentum transfer jqj were 210 MeV and 300 MeV͞c, respectively. Protons, with momenta p 1 a...
