Short-range expansion for the nuclear many-body problem

An accurate description of short-range physics is one of the main challenges in the study of strongly interacting many-body quantum systems. In nuclear systems, short-range correlations (SRCs) have been studied extensively in the last decades using both large momentum transfer quasi-elastic reactions and ab-initio calculations. In this talk, I will present an overview of the Generalized Contact Formalism, an effective model based on the short-range factorization of the many-body wave function, that allows us to obtain a comprehensive picture of the effects of SRCs in nuclei. I will then focus on recent extension of the formalism which includes sub-leading corrections to the wave-function factorization, towards a systematic short-range expansion for the nuclear many-body problem. I will demonstrate the validity of the expansion by comparing it to quantum Monte Carlo calculations of one-body and two-body densities, and discuss the possibility to use our knowledge of SRCs for the description of more general observables.