On the absorption and production cross sections of $K$ and $K^*$

TL;DR

This paper calculates and improves the cross sections for processes involving $K$ and $K^*$ mesons, considering additional mechanisms, and suggests $K^*$ production may dominate over absorption in a hadron gas.

Contribution

It introduces new mechanisms into the calculation of $K$ and $K^*$ cross sections, enhancing the accuracy of modeling their abundances in heavy ion collisions.

Findings

Certain mechanisms significantly increase the cross section values.

$K^*$ production could be more prevalent than absorption in a hadron gas.

Improved calculations include axial and vector resonance exchanges.

Abstract

We have computed the isospin and spin averaged cross sections of the processes $\pi K^*\to \rho K$ and $\rho K^*\to \pi K$, which are crucial in the determination of the abundances of $K^*$ and $K$ in heavy ion collisions. Improving previous calculations, we have considered several mechanisms which were missing, such as the exchange of axial and vector resonances ($K_1(1270)$, $K^*_2(1430)$, $h_1(1170)$, etc...) and also other processes such as $\pi K^*\to \omega K, \phi K$ and $\omega K^*,\,\phi K^*\to \pi K$. We find that some of these mechanisms give important contributions to the cross section. Our results also suggest that, in a hadron gas, $K^*$ production might be more important than its absorption.