A quark-meson coupling model with short-range quark-quark correlations

Short-range quark-quark correlations are introduced into the quark-meson coupling (QMC) model in a simple way. The effect of these correlations on the structure of the nucleon in dense nuclear matter is studied. We find that the short-range correlations may serve to reduce a serious problem associated with the modified quark-meson coupling model (within which the bag constant is allowed to decrease with increasing density), namely the tendency for the size of the bound nucleon to increase rapidly as the density rises. We also find that, with the addition of correlations, both QMC and modified QMC are consistent with the phenomenological equation of state at high density.