Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 072301 (2006) - In-Medium Effects on Phase Space Distributions of Antikaons Measured in Proton-Nucleus Collisions

In-Medium Effects on Phase Space Distributions of Antikaons Measured in Proton-Nucleus Collisions

W. Scheinast, I. Böttcher, M. Dębowski, F. Dohrmann, A. Förster, E. Grosse, P. Koczoń, B. Kohlmeyer, F. Laue, M. Menzel, L. Naumann, E. Schwab, P. Senger, Y. Shin, H. Ströbele, C. Sturm, G. Surówka, F. Uhlig, A. Wagner, W. Waluś, B. Kämpfer, and H. W. Barz (KaoS Collaboration)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 072301 – Published 24 February 2006

Abstract

Differential production cross sections of $K^{\pm}$ mesons have been measured in $p + C$ and $p + Au$ collisions at 1.6, 2.5, and 3.5 GeV proton beam energy. At beam energies close to the production threshold, the $K^{-}$ multiplicity is strongly enhanced with respect to proton-proton collisions. According to microscopic transport calculations, this enhancement is caused by two effects: the strangeness exchange reaction $N Y \to K^{-} N N$ and an attractive in-medium $K^{-} N$ potential at saturation density.

Received 3 February 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.072301

©2006 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

W. Scheinast⁶, I. Böttcher⁴, M. Dębowski^5,6, F. Dohrmann⁶, A. Förster^2,*, E. Grosse^6,7, P. Koczoń¹, B. Kohlmeyer⁴, F. Laue^1,†, M. Menzel⁴, L. Naumann⁶, E. Schwab¹, P. Senger¹, Y. Shin³, H. Ströbele³, C. Sturm^2,1, G. Surówka^1,5, F. Uhlig^2,1, A. Wagner⁶, W. Waluś⁵, B. Kämpfer⁶, and H. W. Barz⁶ (KaoS Collaboration)

¹Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung, D-64220 Darmstadt, Germany
²Technische Universität Darmstadt, D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany
³Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, D-60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
⁴Phillips Universität, D-35037 Marburg, Germany
⁵Jagiellonian University, PL-30059 Kraków, Poland
⁶Forschungszentrum Rossendorf, D-01314 Dresden, Germany
⁷Technische Universität Dresden, D-01062 Dresden, Germany

^*Present address: CERN, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland.
^†Present address: Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA.

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Issue

Vol. 96, Iss. 7 — 24 February 2006

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