Production of cascade hypernuclei via the (K-,K+) reaction within a quark-meson coupling model

TL;DR

This paper models the production of cascade hypernuclei via the (K-,K+) reaction using a covariant effective Lagrangian approach, highlighting the dominant role of Lambda(1520) resonance and predicting cross sections for experimental conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a covariant effective Lagrangian model with quark-meson coupling derived wave functions to study hypernuclear production, incorporating resonance dynamics and matching experimental data.

Findings

Lambda(1520) resonance dominates production cross sections.

Peak differential cross section at 1.0 GeV/c beam momentum.

Cross sections exceed 1 microbarn at optimal conditions.

Abstract

We study the production of bound cascade hypernuclei via the (K-,K+) reaction on 12C and 28Si targets within a covariant effective Lagrangian model, employing the cascade bound state spinors derived from the latest quark-meson coupling model as well as Dirac single particle wave functions. The K+-cascade production vertex is described by excitation, propagation and decay of Lambda and Sigma resonance states in the initial collision of a K- meson with a target proton in the incident channel. The parameters of the resonance vertices are fixed by describing the available data on total and differential cross sections for the cascade production in elementary (K-,K+) reaction. We find that both the elementary and hypernuclear production cross sections are dominated by the contributions from the Lambda(1520) intermediate resonant state. The 0 degree differential cross sections for the formation of simple s-state cascade particle-hole states peak at a beam momentum around 1.0 GeV/c, with a value in excess of 1 mub.