  Cross sections for proton knockout observed in (e,e'p) reactions are
apparently quenched by a factor of ~0.5, an effect attributed to short-range
correlations between nucleons. Here we demonstrate that such quenching is not
restricted to proton knockout, but a more general phenomenon associated with
any nucleon transfer. Measurements of absolute cross sections on a number of
targets between 16O and 208Pb were analyzed in a consistent way, with the cross
sections reduced to spectroscopic factors through the distorted-wave Born
approximation with global optical potentials. Across the 124 cases analyzed
here, induced by various proton- and neutron-transfer reactions and with
angular momentum transfer l=0-7, the results are consistent with a quenching
factor of 0.55. This is an apparently uniform quenching of single-particle
motion in the nuclear medium. The effect is seen not only in (d,p) reactions
but also in reactions with A=3 and 4 projectiles, when realistic wave functions
are used for the projectiles.
