Kaon Interferometry

Abstract

Two-kaon and two-pion correlation functions for an expanding thermalized source are compared. In the Yano-Koonin-Podgoretskii parametrization of the correlation function, the HBT radius parameters are shown to obey M_\bot- scaling in the absence of collective transverse flow. This scaling is broken by transverse flow. An accurate comparison of pion and kaon correlations can thus resolve issue whether the observed M_\bot-dependence of the transverse radius parameter is due to transverse collective flow or other transverse gradients. Effects from resonance decays are shortly discussed.

Comments: 8 pages (incl. 1 Figure), to appear in the proceedings of the workshop "Strangeness 96", Budapest, 15.-17 May 1996, as a special issue of the journal Heavy Ion Physics