Coherent production of Kπ systems observed in the excitation of 200-GeV/c positive kaons on nuclear targets has been analyzed, including both electromagnetic and strong contributions, to yield a new value for the radiative width for the process K*+(890)→K+γ of 51 ± 5 keV.
Using the Primakoff formalism, we have extracted the radiative decay width of the A + 2 (1310) produced in coherent interactions of 200 GeV/ c π + mesons in nuclear targets. The width obtained is 295 ± 60 keV, a value consistent with quark-model predictions.
Using the Primakoff formalism, we have extracted the radiative decay width of the K ∗+ (1430) produced in coherent interactions of 200 GeV/ c K + mesons in nuclear targets. The width obtained is 240 ± 45 keV, a value reasonably consistent with quark-model predictions.
We have measured the coherent nuclear production of low-mass K+ω systems in K+A collisions at 202.5 GeV. Results for carbon, copper, and lead targets are similar to those found for π+π+π− production in π+A reactions at the same energy.
We have observed diffraction dissociation of KL0 mesons with a carbon target into the exclusive final states KS0π+π−, KS0ω, and KS0φ. The diffraction production cross section for these states is not strongly dependent on the incident energy, varying at most by 30% between 75 and 150 GeV. The mass distributions do not change appreciably as a function of laboratory energy. The ratio of the diffractive mass-threshold production of K*±π∓, KS0ρ, KS0ω, and KS0φ is compared with previously obtained lower-energy data.
The differential cross sections for the elastic scattering of π+, π−, K+, K−, p, and p¯ on protons have been measured in the t interval -0.04 to -0.75 GeV2 at five momenta: 50, 70, 100, 140, and 175 GeV/c. The t distributions have been parametrized by the quadratic exponential form dσdt=Aexp(B|t|+C|t|2) and the energy dependence has been described in terms of a single-pole Regge model. The pp and K+p diffraction peaks are found to shrink with α′∼0.20 and ∼0.15 GeV−2, respectively. The p¯p diffraction peak is antishrinking while π±p and K−p are relatively energy-independent. Total elastic cross sections are calculated by integrating the differential cross sections. The rapid decline in σel observed at low energies has stopped and all six reactions approach relatively constant values of σel. The ratio of σelσtot approaches a constant value for all six reactions by 100 GeV, consistent with the predictions of the geometric-scaling hypothesis. This ratio is ∼0.18 for pp and p¯p, and ∼0.12-0.14 for π±p and K±p. A crossover is observed between K+p and K−p scattering at |t|∼0.19 GeV2, and between pp and p¯p at |t|∼0.11 GeV2. Inversion of the cross sections into impact-parameter space shows that protons are quite transparent to mesons even in head-on collisions. The probability for a meson to pass through a proton head-on without interaction inelastically is ∼20% while it is only ∼6% for an incident proton or antiproton. Finally, the results are compared with various quark-model predictions.