Are there any narrow $K^{-}$- nuclear states?

Abstract

We performed self-consistent calculations of $K^{-}$-nuclear quasi-bound states using a single-nucleon $K^{-}$ optical potential derived from chiral meson-baryon coupled-channel interaction models, supplemented by a phenomenological $K^{-}$ multinucleon potential introduced recently to achieve good fits to kaonic atom data [1]. Our calculations show that the effect of $K^{-}$ multinucleon interactions on $K^{-}$ widths in nuclei is decisive. The resulting widths are considerably larger than corresponding binding energies. Moreover, when the density dependence of the $K^{-}$-multinucleon interactions derived in the fits of kaonic atoms is extended to the nuclear interior, the only two models acceptable after imposing as additional constraint the single-nucleon fraction of $K^{-}$ absorption at rest do not yield any kaonic nuclear bound state in majority of considered nuclei.

Comments: 14 pages, 7 figures