  Within an improved transport model, we examine effects of the high momentum
tail of the nucleon momentum distribution induced by short-range correlations
on the proton-proton momentum correlation function in $^{197}$Au+$^{197}$Au
collisions at 400 MeV/nucleon. It is found that the proton-proton momentum
correlation function from preequilibrium emissions responds sensitively to the
presence as well as fraction of nucleons in the high momentum tail of the
nucleon momentum distribution, but is almost robustly insensitive to other
factors including the symmetry energy and the uncertainty of cutoff value of
nucleon effective high momentum. In terms of the sensitivity and clearness, we
propose that the proton-proton momentum correlation function from
preequilibrium emissions can be as an effective probe of the high momentum tail
of the nucleon momentum distribution.
