Analysis of Kaon Production at SIS Energies

Abstract

We analyse the production and propagation of pions and kaons in heavy-ion reactions from 0.8 -- 1.8~A$\cdot$GeV within a coupled channel transport approach including the kaon production channels $BB\to K^{+}YN,\pi B\to K^{+}Y,BB\to NNK\bar{K},\pi B\to NK\bar{K},K^{+}B\to K^{+}B$ and $\pi \pi \to K\bar{K}$. Assuming the hyperon selfenergy to be 2/3 of the nucleon selfenergy we find that all inclusive experimental $K^{+}$ spectra at SIS energies can be reproduced reasonably well without any selfenergies for the kaons although a slightly repulsive kaon potential cannot be excluded by the present data on kaon spectra and flow.

Comments: 19 pages, LaTeX, including 8 postscript figures, to appear in Nucl. Phys. A