Hadrons in Nuclei -- from High (200 GeV) to Low (1 GeV) energies

TL;DR

This paper investigates hadron-nucleus interactions across a wide energy range, using experimental data to explore production processes at high energies and in-medium effects at low energies, enhancing understanding of nuclear matter.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of hadron interactions in nuclei from high to low energies, combining data from multiple experiments to study production mechanisms and in-medium modifications.

Findings

High-energy data reveals details of prehadronic interactions and production time-scales.

Low-energy analysis shows in-medium effects influence hadron spectral functions.

Accurate control of final state interactions is crucial for interpreting results.

Abstract

The study of the interaction of hadrons, produced by elementary probes in a nucleus, with the surrounding nuclear medium can give insight into two important questions. First, at high energies, the production process, the time-scales connected with it and the prehadronic interactions can be studied by using the nuclear radius as a length-scale. We do this here by analyzing data from the EMC and HERMES experiements on nuclear attenuation. Second, at low energies the spectral function, and thus the selfenergy of the produced hadron, can be studied. Specifically, we analyze the CBELSA/TAPS data on $\omega$ production in nuclei and discuss the importance of understanding in-medium effects both on the primary production cross section and the final state branching ratio. In both of these studies an excellent control of the final state interactions is essential.