Production of light hypernuclei with light-ion beams and targets

TL;DR

This paper explores the production of light hypernuclei using relativistic ion-ion collisions, employing a hybrid model to predict yields and optimize experimental conditions for better detection of hypernuclei.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid dynamical model combining cascade-coalescence and Fermi breakup to predict hypernuclei production, comparing results with experimental data and analyzing different beam-target setups.

Findings

Hydrogen targets yield significant hypernuclear production, comparable to carbon targets.

Hydrogen targets improve signal-over-background ratio in hypernuclear detection.

Production cross sections depend on beam energy, mass number, and projectile-target combinations.

Abstract

Ion-ion collisions at relativistic energies have been shown recently to be a promising technique for the production of hypernuclei. In this article, we further investigate the production of light $\Lambda$ hypernuclei by use of a hybrid dynamical model, cascade-coalescence followed by Fermi breakup. The predictions are then compared with the available experimental data. The dependence of the production cross section upon the beam energy, beam mass number as well as different projectile-target combinations is investigated. In particular, we evaluate the yields and signal-over-background ratio in the invariant-mass spectrum for carbon projectiles impinging on hydrogen and carbon targets and various coincidence conditions in the experiment using the theoretical calculation as an input. It is found that comparing with carbon target, hydrogen target also leads to sizable hypernuclear yields, even for exotic species, and the hydrogen target could improve significantly signal-over-background ratio in some hypernuclear invariant mass studies.