ABSTRACT
We report first results on a deep subthreshold production of the doubly strange hyperon Xi;{-} in a heavy-ion reaction. At a beam energy of 1.76A GeV the reaction Ar + KCl was studied with the High Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer at SIS18/GSI. A high-statistics and high-purity Lambda sample was collected, allowing for the investigation of the decay channel Xi;{-} --> Lambdapi;{-}. The deduced Xi;{-}/(Lambda + Sigma;{0}) production ratio of (5.6 +/- 1.2_{-1.7};{+1.8}) x 10;{-3} is significantly larger than available model predictions.
ABSTRACT
The invariant-mass spectrum of e+e- pairs produced in 12C+12C collisions at an incident energy of 2 GeV per nucleon has been measured for the first time. The measured pair production probabilities span over 5 orders of magnitude from the pi(0)-Dalitz to the rho/omega invariant-mass region. Dalitz decays of pi(0) and eta account for all the yield up to 0.15 GeV/c(2), but for only about 50% above this mass. A comparison with model calculations shows that the excess pair yield is likely due to baryon-resonance and vector-meson decays. Transport calculations based on vacuum spectral functions fail, however, to describe the entire mass region.
ABSTRACT
Differential production cross sections of K+/- mesons have been measured in p + C and p + Au collisions at 1.6, 2.5, and 3.5 GeV proton beam energy. At beam energies close to the production threshold, the K- multiplicity is strongly enhanced with respect to proton-proton collisions. According to microscopic transport calculations, this enhancement is caused by two effects: the strangeness exchange reaction NY --> K- NN and an attractive in-medium K- N potential at saturation density.
ABSTRACT
Azimuthal distributions of pi+, K+, and K- mesons have been measured in Au+Au reactions at 1.5A GeV and Ni+Ni reactions at 1.93 A GeV. In semicentral collisions at midrapidity, pi+ and K+ mesons are emitted preferentially perpendicular to the reaction plane in both collision systems. In contrast for K- mesons in Ni+Ni reactions, an in-plane elliptic flow was observed for the first time at these incident energies.
ABSTRACT
The (3,4)(Lambda)H and (4)(Lambda)H hypernuclear bound states have been observed for the first time in kaon electroproduction on (3,4)He targets. The production cross sections have been determined at Q(2)=0.35 GeV2 and W=1.91 GeV. For either hypernucleus the nuclear form factor is determined by comparing the angular distribution of the (3,4)He(e,e(')K+)(3,4)(Lambda)H processes to the elementary cross section 1H(e,e K+)Lambda on the free proton, measured during the same experiment.
ABSTRACT
Differential production cross sections of K- and K+ mesons have been measured in Ni+Ni and Au+Au collisions at a beam energy of 1.5 A GeV. The K(-)/K(+) ratio is found to be nearly constant as a function of the collision centrality and system size. The spectral slopes and the polar emission pattern differ for K- and K+ mesons. These observations indicate that K+ mesons decouple earlier from the fireball than K- mesons.
ABSTRACT
We have measured the differential cross section for the gamman-->pi(-)p and gammap-->pi(+)n reactions at theta(c.m.)=90 degrees in the photon energy range from 1.1 to 5.5 GeV at Jefferson Lab (JLab). The data at E(gamma) greater, similar 3.3 GeV exhibit a global scaling behavior for both pi(-) and pi(+) photoproduction, consistent with the constituent counting rule and the existing pi(+) photoproduction data. Possible oscillations around the scaling value are suggested by these new data. The data show enhancement in the scaled cross section at a center-of-mass energy near 2.2 GeV. The cross section ratio of exclusive pi(-) to pi(+) photoproduction at high energy is consistent with the prediction based on one-hard-gluon-exchange diagrams.
