K?-meson production in proton-nucleus collisions

Abstract

Abstract. K--meson production in proton-nucleus interactions at projectile energies up to 15 GeV is studied. As a first step the available data on K--meson production in pp interactions are compared with different parametrizations and results of model calculations. Because of considerable uncertainties in the current descriptions of the energy dependence of the elementary K-cross section a new parametrization is suggested. Experimental data on K-production in pA collisions are analyzed in the framework of the RossendorfCollision and folding models. Satisfactory descriptions of the momentum spectra at forward angles are achieved. From an analysis of the A dependence it can be concluded that Kmesons are well suited to investigate final-state interactions for particles interacting strongly with the residual nucleus. Furthermore, we propose experimental studies on K-production close to threshold. Such measurements are particularly sensitive to contributions from secondary processes or from multi-nucleon interactions.

Kaon versus antikaon production at SIS energies

“…An important ingredient of our reanalysis of the kaon production cross sections in heavy-ion collisions are the novel elementary production cross sections from Refs. [29,30,33,31] (cf. Sect.…”

“…This recipe might be still a matter of debate; however, our findings in Refs. [29,30,31,32,33] indicate, that the production is essentially dominated by phase space close to threshold and thus a scaling in s 0 /s should be a good approximation. The isospin averaged production cross section of a K + Λ and K + Σ pair in a nucleonnucleon collision is related to the measured isospin channels as:…”

“…The most serious problem related to K − production at 'subthreshold' energies are the baryon-baryon and pion-baryon elementary production cross sections close to threshold where no experimental data are available so far. It has recently been argued that extrapolations from high energy data [28] used in [26] overestimate the elementary K − yield by more than an order of magnitude close to threshold [29,30,31] such that a reanalysis of this question in nucleus-nucleus reactions appears necessary. In previous works we have calculated -within boson exchange models -the near threshold production cross section for antiprotons [32], vector mesons (ρ, ω, Φ) [33] as well as antikaons [31] from nucleon-nucleon as well as pion-nucleon reactions (cf.…”

Hadron production in proton-proton interactions at medium energies

“…An understanding and theoretical interpretation of K-production in pA collisions requires a certain knowledge of the corresponding elementary process as, for example, discussed in a recent publication by Sibirtsev et. al [26]. There are, however, no data available for the elementary process in the threshold region.…”

Hadron production inpBe interactions at 14.6 GeV/c

“…In the present note a first step is done by calculating the invariant cross sections for the production of 7r ~, K § p, and d in pBe interactions within the framework of the Rossendorf collision (ROC) model [14, 15, and references therein]. First results for K production in the rapidity interval 1.2 < y < 1.4 from pBe and pAu reactions has been discussed in [16].The ROC model does not need parametrizations of elementary hadronic interactions as input for the interpretation of nuclear reactions, because it aims at a simultaneous description of both hadronic and nuclear reactions. Thus, a consistent treatment in the framework of the ROC model includes the consideration of particle production in hadronic processes.…”