The width of the omega meson in the nuclear medium

Abstract

We evaluate the width of the $\omega$ meson in nuclear matter. We consider the free decay mode of the $\omega$ into three pions, which is dominated by $\rho \pi$ decay, and replace the $\rho$ and $\pi$ propagators by their medium modified ones. We also take into account the quasielastic and inelastic processes induced by a vector-baryon interaction dominated by vector meson exchange, as well as the contributions coming from the $\omega \to K\bar{K}$ mechanism with medium modified $K$, $\bar{K}$ propagators. We obtain a substantial increase of the $\omega$ width in the medium, reaching a value of $129\pm 10$ MeV at normal nuclear matter density for an $\omega$ at rest, which comes mainly from $\omega N\to \pi \pi N,\omega NN\to \pi NN$ processes associated to the dominant $\omega \to \rho \pi$ decay mode. The value of the width increases moderately with momentum, reaching values of around 200 MeV at 600 MeV/c.

25 pages, 14 figures, revised version to appear published in Eur. Phys. J. A

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• $\varphi$ meson self-energy in nuclear matter from $\varphi N$ resonant interactions
• $K^{\ast }$ vector meson resonances dynamics in heavy-ion collisions
• Interactions of $\omega$-Mesons in Nuclear Matter and with Nuclei
• Velocity dependence of the mass modifications of $\rho$ and $\omega$ mesons in 12 GeV $p+A$ reactions