Contact formalism for coupled channels

Ronen Weiss, Nir Barnea

Published 2017-05-07Version 1

The contact formalism, a useful tool for analyzing short-range correlations, is generalized here for systems with coupled channels, such as in nuclear physics. The relevant asymptotic form is presented and contact matrices are defined. Generally, for the case of two coupled channels, two two-body functions are included in the asymptotic form, resulting a 2 x 2 contact matrix. Nevertheless, it is shown that if the coupling terms of the potential are very weak or very strong, only a single two-body function is needed, resulting a single contact. It is achieved by applying an appropriate boundary condition on the two-body functions. This universal result is directly relevant to nuclear systems, and provides a theoretical explanation for the fact that proton-neutron short-range correlations can be described using the single bound-state deuteron wave function.