Anti-strange meson-baryon interaction in hot and dense nuclear matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates in-medium cross sections and transition rates for strange meson production in hot, dense nuclear matter using an advanced chiral unitary approach, providing insights into hyperon behavior and resonance melting relevant for heavy-ion collision modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent, finite-temperature, density-dependent formalism for in-medium kaon-nucleon interactions, including full unitarization and off-shell effects, improving upon previous models.

Findings

Total cross sections reflect the melting of the $ ext{Lambda}(1405)$ resonance in nuclear matter.

Off-shell transition probabilities are sensitive to in-medium hyperon properties.

Hyperon single-particle potentials are analyzed in relation to scattering amplitudes.

Abstract

We present a study of in-medium cross sections and (off-shell) transition rates for the most relevant binary reactions for strange pseudoscalar meson production close to threshold in heavy-ion collisions at FAIR energies. Our results rely on a chiral unitary approach in coupled channels which incorporates the $s$- and $p$-waves of the kaon-nucleon interaction. The formalism, which is modified in the hot and dense medium to account for Pauli blocking effects, mean-field binding on baryons, and pion and kaon self-energies, has been improved to implement full unitarization and self-consistency for both the $s$- and $p$-wave interactions at finite temperature and density. This gives access to in-medium amplitudes in several elastic and inelastic coupled channels with strangeness content $S=-1$. The obtained total cross sections mostly reflect the fate of the $\Lambda(1405)$ resonance, which melts in the nuclear environment, whereas the off-shell transition probabilities are also sensitive to the in-medium properties of the hyperons excited in the $p$-wave amplitudes [$\Lambda$, $\Sigma$ and $\Sigma^*(1385)$]. The single-particle potentials of these hyperons at finite momentum, density and temperature are also discussed in connection with the pertinent scattering amplitudes. Our results are the basis for future implementations in microscopic transport approaches accounting for off-shell dynamics of strangeness production in nucleus-nucleus collisions.