Inclusive K^+ meson production in proton-nucleus interactions

Abstract

The production of K^+ mesons in pA (A = D, C, Cu, Ag, Au) collisions has been investigated at the COoler SYnchrotron COSY-Jülich for beam energies T_p = 1.0 - 2.3 GeV. Double differential inclusive pC cross sections at forward angles theta < 12 degrees as well as the target-mass dependence of the K^+ momentum spectra have been measured with the ANKE spectrometer. Far below the free NN threshold at T_{NN}=1.58 GeV the spectra reveal a high degree of collectivity in the target nucleus. From the target-mass dependence of the cross sections at higher energies, the repulsive in-medium potential of K^+ mesons can be deduced. Using pN cross-section parameterisations from literature and our measured pD data we derive a cross-section ratio of sigma(pn -> K^+ X) / sigma(pp -> K^+ X) ~ (3-4).

Accepted for publication in EPJ A; 17 pages, 10 figures, 11 tables

References in corpus (2)

• a0+(980)-resonance production in pp->dK+Kbar0 reactions close to threshold
• Near-threshold production of omega mesons in the pn -> d omega reaction

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• Excited Hyperons Produced in Proton-Proton Collisions with Anke@COSY
• Hadron Production Model Developments and Benchmarking in the 0.7 - 12 GeV Energy Region