Kaon pair production in proton-nucleus collisions at 2.83 GeV kinetic energy

TL;DR

This study investigates kaon pair production in proton-nucleus collisions at 2.83 GeV, measuring differential cross sections and analyzing the K- nucleus potential, revealing an attractive potential of about -60 MeV.

Contribution

It provides new experimental data on K+K- production and offers insights into the K- nucleus potential at this energy, comparing results with detailed model calculations.

Findings

K- nucleus potential is approximately -60 MeV at normal nuclear density.

Measured differential cross sections show difficulty in matching low-momentum data with existing models.

Data suggests an attractive K- -nucleus interaction at the studied energy.

Abstract

The production of non-phi K+K- pairs by protons of 2.83 GeV kinetic energy on C, Cu, Ag, and Au targets has been investigated using the COSY-ANKE magnetic spectrometer. The K- momentum dependence of the differential cross section has been measured at small angles over the 0.2--0.9 GeV/c range. The comparison of the data with detailed model calculations indicates an attractive K- -nucleus potential of about -60 MeV at normal nuclear matter density at a mean momentum of 0.5 GeV/c. However, this approach has difficulty in reproducing the smallness of the observed cross sections at low K- momenta.