Recent developments in understanding short-range correlations

The correlated pairing of nucleons at short-range is a universal phenomenon in nuclei, and leads to an appreciable fraction of nucleons (approximately 20% in medium-mass nuclei and larger) carrying significantly more momentum than the nuclear Fermi-momentum. Short-range correlations (SRCs) have far-reaching impacts especially in high-density nuclear matter, such as the matter at the cores of neutron stars. While the past few years have brought remarkable new insight into the natures of these correlations, there are still major unresolved questions, including the pair formation mechanism, the nature of the nucleon-nucleon force at extremely short range, and even the exotic possibility of three-nucleon correlations. In this talk, I will give a broad overview of recent progress on understanding SRCs and their impact on other problems in nuclear physics. I will present recent work that illuminates the role of SRCs in the so-called "EMC Effect," discuss how the theoretical framework called "Generalized Contact Formalism" can help us interpret experimental results, and examine the idea of SRCs as a laboratory for studying the short-range nucleon-nucleon interaction and even probing the repulsive core.