Production cross sections of K$^+$ and K$^-$ mesons have been measured in C+C collisions at beam energies per nucleon below and near the nucleon-nucleon threshold. At a given beam energy, the spectral slopes of the K$^-$ mesons are significantly steeper than the ones of the K$^+$ mesons. The excitation functions for K$^+$ and K$^-$ mesons nearly coincide when correcting for the threshold energy. In contrast, the K$^+$ yield exceeds the K$^-$ yield by a factor of about 100 in proton-proton collisions at beam energies near the respective nucleon-nucleon thresholds.
D3(SIG)/D3(p) is fitted to exp(-E(K)/SLOPE). The quoted erros on the cross sections include systematic effects.
D3(SIG)/D3(p) is fitted to exp(-E(K)/SLOPE). The quoted erros on the cross sections include systematic effects.
D3(SIG)/D3(p) is fitted to exp(-E(K)/SLOPE). The quoted erros on the cross sections include systematic effects.
In the very heavy collision system Au197+197Au the K+ production process was studied as a function of impact parameter at 1 GeV/nucleon, a beam energy well below the free N-N threshold. The K+ multiplicity increases more than linearly with the number of participant nucleons and the K+/π+ ratio rises significantly when going from peripheral to central collisions. The measured K+ double differential cross section is enhanced by a factor of 6 compared to microscopic transport calculations if secondary processes (ΔN→KΛN and ΔΔ→KΛN) are ignored.
No description provided.
The total K+ cross section is determined by extrapolating and integrating the double differential cross section d2(sig)/d(p)/d(omega) over momentum and solid angle.