Double differential K+cross sections have been measured in p+C collisions at 1.2, 1.5 and 2.5 GeV beam energy and in p+Pb collisions at 1.2 and 1.5 GeV. The K+ spectrum taken at 2.5 GeV can be reproduced quantitatively by a model calculation which takes into account first chance proton-nucleon collisions and internal momentum with energy distribution of nucleons according to the spectral function. At 1.2 and 1.5 GeV beam energy the K+ data excess significantly the model predictions for first chance collisions. When taking secondary processes into account the results of the calculations are in much better agreement with the data.
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.
K+ meson production in pA (A = C, Cu, Au) collisions has been studied using the ANKE spectrometer at an internal target position of the COSY-Juelich accelerator. The complete momentum spectrum of kaons emitted at forward angles, theta < 12 degrees, has been measured for a beam energy of T(p)=1.0 GeV, far below the free NN threshold of 1.58 GeV. The spectrum does not follow a thermal distribution at low kaon momenta and the larger momenta reflect a high degree of collectivity in the target nucleus.
A precision measurement of the double-differential production cross-section, ${{d^2 \sigma^{\pi^+}}}/{{d p d\Omega}}$, for pions of positive charge, performed in the HARP experiment is presented. The incident particles are protons of 12.9 GeV/c momentum impinging on an aluminium target of 5% nuclear interaction length. The measurement of this cross-section has a direct application to the calculation of the neutrino flux of the K2K experiment. After cuts, 210000 secondary tracks reconstructed in the forward spectrometer were used in this analysis. The results are given for secondaries within a momentum range from 0.75 GeV/c to 6.5 GeV/c, and within an angular range from 30 mrad to 210 mrad. The absolute normalization was performed using prescaled beam triggers counting protons on target. The overall scale of the cross-section is known to better than 6%, while the average point-to-point error is 8.2%.
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