Kaon production and propagation at intermediate relativistic energies

Abstract

We systematically study $K^{+}$ observables in nucleus-nucleus collisions at 1-2 A GeV within the Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) transport model. We compare our calculations with the KaoS data on the kaon multiplicities and spectra. In addition, the kaon collective flow is computed and compared with the FOPI and KaoS data. We show, that the elliptic kaon flow measured recently by the KaoS Collaboration is best described by using the Brown-Rho parametrization of the kaon potential ($U_K({\rho }_0)\simeq 30$ MeV).

Comments: 21 pages, 3 tables, 17 figures; references added; version accepted in PRC