Open and Hidden Strangeness Production in Nucleon-Nucleon Collisions

TL;DR

This paper reviews the theoretical modeling of K and eta meson production in nucleon-nucleon collisions, emphasizing the role of baryonic resonances and strangeness content to understand non-perturbative QCD effects.

Contribution

It provides an overview of effective Lagrangian models for strange meson production, highlighting the importance of intermediate baryonic resonances and strangeness in nucleon-nucleon interactions.

Findings

Strange meson production sheds light on non-perturbative QCD.

Current models still lack full understanding of experimental data.

Resonance excitation plays a key role in meson production.

Abstract

We present an overview of the description of K and eta meson productions in nucleon-nucleon collisions within an effective Lagrangian model where meson production proceeds via excitation, propagation and subsequent decay of intermediate baryonic resonant states. The $K$ meson contains a strange quark ($s$) or antiquark ($\bar s$) while the $\eta$ meson has hidden strangeness as it contains some component of the $s{\bar s}$ pair. Strange meson production is expected to provide information on the manifestation of quantum chromodynamics in the non-perturbative regime of energies larger than that of the low energy pion physics. We discuss specific examples where proper understanding of the experimental data for these reactions is still lacking.