Studying close proximity proton pairs in nuclei via large momentum transfer exclusive electron nucleus reactions

The biggest deficiency of the independent particle model of nuclei is in ignoring correlated pairs of nucleons, whose constituents are at short relative distances and have large relative momenta. The experimental exploration of these correlated nucleon pairs has proven to be difficult due to competing mechanisms such as final state rescattering and two-body currents. We recently performed an experiment at Jefferson Lab and measured the 12C(e,e'p), 12C(e,e'pp) reactions under conditions chosen to minimize the effects of competing mechanisms. This was achieved using kinematics with high momentum transfer and Bjorken scaling parameter larger than unity. Preliminary results of these measurements are presented.