Antikaon Production in Proton-Nucleus Reactions and the $K^{-}$ properties in nuclear matter

Abstract

We calculate the momentum-dependent potentials for $K^{+}$ and $K^{-}$ mesons in a dispersion approach at nuclear density ${\rho }_0$ using the information from the vacuum $K^{+}N$ and $K^{-}N$ scattering amplitudes, however, leaving out the resonance contributions for the in-medium analysis. Whereas the $K^{+}$ potential is found to be repulsive ($\approx$ + 30 MeV) and to show only a moderate momentum dependence, the $K^{-}$ selfenergy at normal nuclear matter density turns out to be $\approx$ - 200 MeV at zero momentum in line with kaon atomic data, however, decreases rapidly in magnitude for higher momenta. The antikaon production in p + A reactions is calculated within a coupled transport approach and compared to the data at KEK including different assumptions for the antikaon potentials. Furthermore, detailed predictions are made for $p{+}^{12}C$ and $p{+}^{207}Pb$ reactions at 2.5 GeV in order to determine the momentum dependent antikaon potential experimentally.

Comments: 27 pages, LaTeX, including 14 ps-figures, UGI-98-18