Production and electromagnetic decay of hyperons: a feasibility study with HADES as a Phase-0 experiment at FAIR

TL;DR

This study assesses the HADES detector's capability, with upgrades, to measure hyperon electromagnetic decays and double strange baryon production in proton-proton collisions at 4.5 GeV, as part of a feasibility analysis for FAIR.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential of the upgraded HADES detector to perform hyperon decay and double strange baryon production measurements at FAIR for the first time.

Findings

Extended detector acceptance with new Forward Detector.

Estimated signal count rates for hyperon decays and baryon production.

Feasibility of measuring hyperon electromagnetic decays at FAIR.

Abstract

A feasibility study has been performed in order to investigate the performance of the HADES detector to measure the electromagnetic decays of the hyperon resonances $\Sigma(1385)^0$, $\Lambda(1405)$ and $\Lambda{\Lambda}(1520)$ as well as the production of double strange baryon systems $\Xi^-$ and $\Lambda\Lambda$ in p+p reactions at a beam kinetic energy of 4.5 GeV. The existing HADES detector will be upgraded by a new Forward Detector, which extends the detector acceptance into a range of polar angles that plays a crucial role for these investigations. The analysis of each channel is preceded by a consideration of the production cross-sections. Afterwards the expected signal count rates using a target consisting of either liquid hydrogen or polyethylene are summarized.