Evidence for a Soft Nuclear Equation-of-State from Kaon Production in Heavy Ion Collisions

Sturm, C.; Böttcher, I.; Debowski, M.; Förster, A.; Grosse, E.; Koczon, P.; Kohlmeyer, B.; Laue, F.; Mang, M.; Naumann, L.; Oeschler, H.; Pühlhofer, F.; Schwab, E.; Senger, P.; Shin, Y.; Speer, J.; Ströbele, H.; Surowka, G.; Uhlig, F.; Wagner, A.; Walus, W.

Evidence for a Soft Nuclear Equation-of-State from Kaon Production in Heavy Ion Collisions

Sturm, C.; Böttcher, I.; Debowski, M.; Förster, A.; Grosse, E.; Koczon, P.; Kohlmeyer, B.; Laue, F.; Mang, M.; Naumann, L.; Oeschler, H.; Pühlhofer, F.; Schwab, E.; Senger, P.; Shin, Y.; Speer, J.; Ströbele, H.; Surowka, G.; Uhlig, F.; Wagner, A.; Walus, W.

The production of pions and kaons has been measured in Au+Au collisions at beam energies from 0.6 to 1.5 AGeV with the Kaon Spectrometer at SIS/GSI. The K+ meson multiplicity per nucleon is enhanced in Au+Au collisions by factors up to 6 relative to C+C reactions whereas the corresponding pion ratio is reduced. The ratio of the K+ meson excitation functions for Au+Au and C+C collisions increases with decreasing beam energy. This behavior is expected for a soft nuclear equation-of-state.

Keywords: pion kaon Au+Au collisions K+ meson multiplicity nucleon nuclear equation-of-state

Physical Review Letters 86 (2001) 39

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