Bochum 1998 – scientific programme

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HK: Hadronen und Kerne

HK 59: Heavy Ion Reactions VII, Relativistic Energies

HK 59.4: Group Report

Thursday, March 19, 1998, 15:30–16:00, P

Kaon and antikaon production in dense and hot nuclear matter[*] — •F. Laue — Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung mbH, Planckstraße 1, D-64291 Darmstadt

In experiments with the Kaon Spectrometer at SIS/GSI we have studied kaon and antikaon production in nucleus-nucleus collisions in order to search for modifications of hadron properties in dense nuclear matter. In Ni+Ni collisions at 1.8 AGeV we found an enhanced K⁻ yield [1] in respect to the lighter system C+C which is considered as a signature for an in–medium reduction of the antikaon mass [2]. For C+C collisions at 1.8AGeV the K⁻/K⁺ ratio is a factor of about 3 smaller than for Ni+Ni. This finding is in contrast to the expectation, that due to the large K⁻ absorption cross section the K⁻/K⁺ ratio decreases with increasing mass of the collision system. The experimental results will be discussed with respect to in–medium effects.

[1] R.Barth et al., Phys.  Rev.  Lett., 78 (1997) 4007
[2] W.Cassing et al., Nucl.  Phys. A 614 (1997) 415
[*] supported by GSI and BMBF