Inclusive Studies of Two- and Three-Nucleon Short-Range Correlations in ^3H and ^3He

Inclusive electron scattering at carefully chosen kinematics can isolatescattering from short-range correlations (SRCs), produced through hard,short-distance interactions of nucleons in the nucleus. Because the two-nucleon(2N) SRCs arise from the same N-N interaction in all nuclei, the cross sectionin the SRC-dominated regime is identical up to an overall scaling factor, andthe A/2H cross section ratio is constant in this region. This scaling behaviorhas been used to identify SRC dominance and to map out the contribution of SRCsfor a wide range of nuclei. We examine this scaling behavior at lower momentumtransfers using new data on ^2H, ^3H, and ^3He which show that thescaling region is larger than in heavy nuclei. Based on the improved scaling,especially for ^3H/^3He, we examine the ratios at kinematics wherethree-nucleon SRCs may play an important role. The data for the largest initialnucleon momenta are consistent with isolation of scattering from 3N-SRCs, andsuggest that the very-highest momentum nucleons in ^3He have a nearlyisospin-independent momentum configuration, or a small enhancement of theproton distribution.