Kaon and anti-kaon production in near-threshold proton-nucleus collisions


The study of proton-nucleus reactions represent a necessary prerequisite for a thourough understanding of the dynamics of heavy-ion collisions. Therefore, the  KaoS collaboration performed at GSI Darmstadt a series of systematic measurements of kaon and anti-kaon production in proton induced reactions at various nuclei and beam energies. The data analysis is in progress. As indicated by recent experiments at ITEP Moscow one has to expect a pronounced increase of the anti-kaon cross section, relative to the kaon cross section, when going to smaller equivalent energies. This particular behavior is the analog manifestation of in-medium effects as observed in heavy-ion collisions.

In a complementary phase space region (namely at small transverse momenta and forward rapidities) the ANKE collaboration is going to measure the reaction p + 12C at COSY in Juelich in an experiment at the internal beam. An earlier motivation was to determine experimentally whether the production of K+- occurs via multi-step processes. Therefore, the K+- are measured in correlation with other ejectiles like d or 3He. The key is a missing mass analysis. The preparation of the experiments has benefited very much by simulations with the Rossendorf Collision Model of H. Mueller.

for further information contact  B. Kämpfer

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