Strange particle production in proton-nucleus reactions at ultrarelativistic energies

Abstract

Enhanced yields of lambdas and other strange hadrons in experiments on nuclear targets at incident energies of 200 GeV have been recently reported by several experimental groups. We calculated events for proton projectiles on different targets in the framework of the relativistic quantum molecular dynamics approach which is based on string excitation and fragmentation with subsequent hadronic collisions. Here we address the question whether the experimentally found lambda enhancement in hadron-nucleus collisions can be understood by interactions of secondary hadrons formed in the target nucleus. Our results for Λ's, kaons and$\bar \Lambda 's$ agree well with the experimental measurements. We find a doubling of lambda production in the target fragmentation region forp collisions on heavy targets due to nuclear cascading of the produced mesons. Resonances play an important role in creating strange quark pairs confirming earlier findings of their outstanding role inAA collisions.