Production of phi mesons in subthreshold heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

Within a BUU type transport model we study $\varphi$ meson production in subthreshold Ni+Ni and Ru+Ru reactions. For the first time we included in our model the elementary reaction channels $\rho +N,\Delta \to \varphi +N$, $\pi +N(1520)\to \varphi +N$ and $\pi \rho$ $\to$ $\varphi$. In spite of a substantial increase of the $\varphi$ multiplicities by these channels our results stay significantly below the preliminary experimental data.

4 pages, 2 figures, version to be published in the proceedings of the SQM2001 Conference (Frankfurt, Germany, 25-29 Sep 2001)