Kaon and hyperon production in antiproton-induced reactions on nuclei

TL;DR

This paper investigates strangeness production in antiproton-nucleus collisions across a wide energy range using the GiBUU transport model, comparing results with experimental data and exploring hyperon formation and future experimental prospects.

Contribution

It provides a detailed theoretical analysis of hyperon and kaon production in antiproton-induced reactions, incorporating comprehensive cross sections and channel contributions, and discusses potential bound hypernuclear states.

Findings

Good agreement with experimental mbda- and K^0_S-production data

Identifies dominant channels contributing to hyperon production

Discusses the feasibility of forming bound hypernuclei in such reactions

Abstract

We study the strangeness production in antiproton-nucleus collisions at the beam momenta from 200 MeV/c to 15 GeV/c within the Giessen Botzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (GiBUU) transport model. The GiBUU model contains a very detailed description of the underlying antinucleon-nucleon cross sections, in-particular, of the strangeness production channels. We compare our calculations with the bubble chamber data on \Lambda- and K^0_S-production in antiproton-nucleus collisions and with the earlier intranuclear cascade calculations. The contributions of the various partial channels to the hyperon production are reported and systematic differences with experiment are discussed. The possible formation of the bound \Lambda- and \Lambda\Lambda-nucleus systems is also considered. Finally, the results on the \Xi-hyperon production are presented in view of the forthcoming experiments with antiproton beams at FAIR.