Applications of SRG Factorization*

Recent calculations of nuclear structure make use of the similarity renormalization group to soften the nuclear potential through a series of unitary transformations, which suppress short range correlations.\footnote{E.D. Jurgenson, P. Navr\'atil, and R.J. Furnstahl, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{103}, 082501 (2009).}\(^{,}\)\footnote{E. R. Anderson, S. K. Bogner, R. J. Furnstahl, and R. J. Perry, Phys. Rev. C \textbf{82}, 054001 (2010)} Not only does this lead to a decoupling of scales in the potential, but also simplifications for other operators. One consequence, in particular, is that operator expectation values of high-energy probes in low-energy nuclear states exhibit factorization. As a result, phenomena previously attributed to strong short-range correlations induced by the nucleon-nucleon interaction, such as nuclear scaling and the EMC effect, can now be understood more clearly as a result of low-momentum nuclear structure. Recent results are reported.