Exclusive electrodisintegration of ³He at high Q². II. Decay function formalism

Based on the theoretical framework of a generalized eikonal approximation, we study the two-nucleon emission reactions in high Q² electrodisintegration of ³He. Our main aim is to investigate those features of the reaction which can be unambiguously identified with the short-range properties of the ground state nuclear wave function. To evaluate the differential cross section, we work in the formalism of the decay function which characterizes the property of the ground state wave function as well as the decay properties of the final two-nucleon spectator system. Our main motivation here is to explore the accessibility of two- and three-nucleon short-range correlations in ³He as well as to isolate unambiguously single and double rescattering processes in the reaction dynamics. Our analysis also allowed us to identify new approaches for investigating the role of the practically unknown three-nucleon forces in the ground state wave function of ³He.