Eikonal calculation of (p,3p) cross sections for neutron-rich nuclei

In this work, we present the first, to our knowledge, theoretical description of two-proton removal reactions with proton target $(p,3p)$ for medium-mass nuclei at intermediate energies and present cross sections for the different bound states of the residual nucleus with two fewer protons. The description of the reaction assumes two sequential ``quasifree'' collisions between the target and removed protons and considers eikonal propagation in between. The formalism is applied to the reactions ¹²C(p,3p)¹⁰Be, ²⁸Mg(p,3p)²⁶Ne and ⁵⁴Ca(p,3p)⁵²Ar, finding reasonable agreement to experimental data for the ¹²C target and an overestimation of a factor ~3 for the more neutron-rich and ⁵⁴Ca, which is similar to the results found in two-proton knockout experiments with ⁹Be and ¹²C targets.