A microscopic description of the (γ, pn)-reaction

The quasideuteron process has been investigated for photon energies 40 MeV<E_γ< 160 MeV on the basis of a shell model picture modified by short range nucleon-nucleon correlations. It turns out that the cross section for the (γ, pn)-reaction depends sensitively on the details of the correlation function, i.e. on the exchange of high momenta between otherwise independently moving nucleons. The final state interaction has been consistently taken care of by using optical model wave functions for the outgoing nucleons. The results of the calculations for¹⁶O indicate that precise measurements of the (γ, pn) cross section do contain information on the properties of the nuclear wave functions for small internucleonic distances.