Search

Differential and total cross sections for the pp -> ppK+K- reaction have been measured at a proton beam energy of 2.83 GeV using the COSY-ANKE magnetic spectrometer. Detailed model descriptions fitted to a variety of one-dimensional distributions permit the separation of the pp -> pp phi cross section from that of non-phi production. The differential spectra show that higher partial waves represent the majority of the pp -> pp phi total cross section at an excess energy of 76 MeV, whose energy dependence would then seem to require some s-wave phi-p enhancement near threshold. The non-phi data can be described in terms of the combined effects of two-body final state interactions using the same effective scattering parameters determined from lower energy data., Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables

The production of phi mesons in proton collisions with C, Cu, Ag, and Au targets has been studied via the phi -> K+K- decay at an incident beam energy of 2.83 GeV using the ANKE detector system at COSY. For the first time, the momentum dependence of the nuclear transparency ratio, the in-medium phi width, and the differential cross section for phi meson production at forward angles have been determined for these targets over the momentum range of 0.6 - 1.6 GeV/c. There are indications of a significant momentum dependence in the value of the extracted phi width, which corresponds to an effective phi-N absorption cross section in the range of 14 - 21 mb., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

The momentum spectra of K+ produced at small angles in proton-proton and proton-deuteron collisions have been measured at four beam energies, 1.826, 1.920, 2.020, and 2.650 GeV, using the ANKE spectrometer at COSY-Juelich. After making corrections for Fermi motion and shadowing, the data indicate that K+ production near threshold is stronger in pp- than in pn-induced reactions. However, most of this difference could be made up by the unobserved K0 production in the pn case., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to PRC

The production of phi mesons in the collisions of 2.83 GeV protons with C, Cu, Ag, and Au at forward angles has been measured via the phi -> K+K- decay using the COSY-ANKE magnetic spectrometer. The phi meson production cross section follows a target mass dependence of A^0.56+/-0.02 in the momentum region of 0.6-1.6 GeV/c. The comparison of the data with model calculations suggests that the in-medium phi width is about an order of magnitude larger than its free value., Comment: 8 pages with 2 eps figures

The production of the Sigma+ hyperon through the pp->K+nSigma+ reaction has been investigated at four energies close to threshold, 1.826, 1.920, 1.958, and 2.020 GeV. At low energies, correlated K+pi+ pairs can only originate from Sigma+ production so that their measurement allows the total cross section for the reaction to be determined. The results obtained are completely consistent with the values extracted from the study of the K+-proton correlation spectra obtained in the same experiment. These spectra, as well as the inclusive K+ momentum distributions, also provide conservative upper limits on the Sigma+ production rates. The measurements show a Sigma+ production cross section that varies roughly like phase space and, in particular, none of the three experimental approaches used supports the anomalously high near-threshold pp->K+ nSigma+ total cross section previously reported [T. Rozek et al., Phys. Lett. B 643, 251 (2006)]., Comment: Submitted to PRC

The total cross section for the dd -> 4He K+ K- reaction has been measured at a beam momentum of 3.7 GeV/c, corresponding to an excess energy of 39 MeV, which is the maximum possible at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY-J\"{u}lich. A deuterium cluster-jet target and the ANKE forward magnetic spectrometer, placed inside the storage ring, have been employed in this investigation. We find a total cross section of sigma(tot) < 14 pb, which brings into question the viability of investigating the dd -> 4He a0(980) reaction as a means of studying isospin violation., Comment: Five pages with three eps figures

Measurements of the pn -> p_spec dK^+K^- reaction, where p_spec is a spectator proton, have been undertaken at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY-Juelich by detecting a fast deuteron in coincidence with a K^+K^- pair in the ANKE facility. Although the proton beam energy was fixed, the moving target neutron allowed values of the non-resonant quasi-free pn -> dK^+K^- total cross section to be deduced up to an excess energy epsilon ~ 100 MeV. Evidence is found for the effects of K^-d and KKbar final state interactions. The comparison of these data with those of pp -> ppK^+K^- and pp -> dK^+Kbar shows that all the total cross sections are very similar in magnitude., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; submitted to PRC (rapid communication)

The cross sections for the pp -> ppK+K- reaction were measured at three beam energies 2.65, 2.70, and 2.83 GeV at the COSY-ANKE facility. The shape of the K+K- spectrum at low invariant masses largely reflects the importance of K\bar{K} final state interactions. It is shown that these data can be understood in terms of an elastic K+K- rescattering plus a contribution coming from the production of a K0\bar{K}0 pair followed by a charge-exchange rescattering. Though the data are not yet sufficient to establish the size of the cusp at the K0\bar{K}0 threshold, the low mass behaviour suggests that isospin-zero production is dominant., Comment: 9 pages with 4 figures

A combined analysis of the published data on the pp -> dK+K0bar reaction at excess energies of 47.4 MeV and 104.7 MeV is presented. Evidence is found for both the production of the a0+(980)scalar resonance and for a strong K0bar:d final state interaction., Comment: 7 pages + 8 figures

The differential and total cross sections for kaon pair production in the pp->ppK+K- reaction have been measured at three beam energies of 2.65, 2.70, and 2.83 GeV using the ANKE magnetic spectrometer at the COSY-Juelich accelerator. These near-threshold data are separated into pairs arising from the decay of the phi-meson and the remainder. For the non-phi selection, the ratio of the differential cross sections in terms of the K-p and K+p invariant masses is strongly peaked towards low masses. This effect can be described quantitatively by using a simple ansatz for the K-p final state interaction, where it is seen that the data are sensitive to the magnitude of an effective K-p scattering length. When allowance is made for a small number of phi events where the K- rescatters from the proton, the phi region is equally well described at all three energies. A very similar phenomenon is discovered in the ratio of the cross sections as functions of the K-pp and K+pp invariant masses and the identical final state interaction model is also very successful here. The world data on the energy dependence of the non-phi total cross section is also reproduced, except possibly for the results closest to threshold., Comment: 12 two-column pages, 12 figures, 1 table

The pp -> p K+ Y0 reaction has been studied for hyperon masses m(Y0)<1540 MeV/c2 at COSY-Juelich by using a 3.65 GeV/c circulating proton beam incident on an internal hydrogen target. Final states comprising two protons, one positively charged kaon and one negatively charged pion have been identified with the ANKE spectrometer. Such configurations are sensitive to the production of the ground state Lambda and Sigma0 hyperons as well as the Sigma0(1385) and Lambda(1405) resonances. Applying invariant- and missing-mass techniques, the two overlapping excited states could be well separated, though with limited statistics. The shape and position of the Lambda(1405) distribution, reconstructed cleanly in the Sigma0 pion0 channel, are similar to those found from other decay modes and there is no obvious mass shift. This finding constitutes a challenging test for models that predict Lambda(1405) to be a two-state resonance., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Lett. B

Inclusive K+ production in proton-proton collisions has been measured at a beam energy of 2.16 GeV using the COSY-ANKE magnetic spectrometer. The resulting spectrum, as well as those corresponding to K+ p and K+ pi+ correlated pairs, can all be well described using consistent values of the total cross sections for the pp->K+ p Lambda, pp->K+ p Sigma0, and pp->K+ n Sigma+ reactions. While the resulting values for Lambda and Sigma0 production are in good agreement with world data, our value for the total Sigma+ production cross section, sigma(pp->K+ n Sigma+) = 2.5+/-0.6(stat)+/-0.4(syst) mkb at an excess energy of epsilon=129 MeV, could only be reconciled with other recently published data if there were a highly unusual near--threshold behaviour., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

The reaction pp->p K0 pi+ Lambda has been studied with the ANKE spectrometer at COSY-Juelich at a beam momentum of 3.65 GeV/c in order to search for a possible signal of the pentaquark Theta+(1540), decaying into the p K0 system. By detecting four charged particles in the final state, the K0 and the Lambda have been reconstructed to tag strangeness production. It has been found that the pi+ Lambda missing-mass spectrum displays no significant signal expected from the Theta+(1540) excitation. The total cross section for the reaction pp->p K0 pi+ Lambda has been deduced, as well as an upper limit for the Theta+ production cross section. The intermediate Delta++ K0 Lambda state is found to provide a significant contribution to the reaction., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures; text changed, references added, style file changed

The production of omega-mesons in the pp->pp omega reaction has been investigated with the COSY-ANKE spectrometer for excess energies of 60 and 92MeV by detecting the two final protons and reconstructing their missing mass. The large multipion background was subtracted using an event-by-event transformation of the proton momenta between the two energies. Differential distributions and total cross sections were obtained after careful studies of possible systematic uncertainties in the overall ANKE acceptance. The results are compared with the predictions of theoretical models. Combined with data on the phi-meson, a more refined estimate is made of the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka rule violation in the phi/omega production ratio., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, version 1, submitted to EPJ-A

The quasi-free pn->dphi reaction has been studied at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY-Juelich, using the internal proton beam incident on a deuterium cluster-jet target and detecting a fast deuteron in coincidence with the K+K- decay of the phi-meson. The energy dependence of the total and differential cross sections are extracted for excess energies up to 80 MeV by determining the Fermi momentum of the target neutron on an event-by-event basis. Though these cross sections are consistent with s-wave production, the kaon angular distributions show the presence of p waves at quite low energy. Production on the neutron is found to be stronger than on the proton but not by as much as for the eta-meson., Comment: 4 Pages, 3 Figures, version 2, resubmitted to Phys. Rev. Lett

The reaction pp -> d K^+ K^0-bar has been investigated at excess energies Q = 47.4 and 104.7 MeV above the K^+ K^0-bar threshold at COSY-Juelich. Coincident dK^+ pairs were detected with the ANKE spectrometer, and events with a missing K^0-bar invariant-mass subsequently identified. The joint analysis of invariant-mass and angular distributions reveals s-wave dominance between the two kaons, in conjunction with a p-wave between the deuteron and the kaon pair, i.e. K K-bar production via the a_0^+(980) channel. Integration of the differential distributions yields total cross sections of sigma(pp -> d K^+ K^0-bar) = (38 +/- 2(stat) +/- 14(syst)) nb and 190 +/- 4(stat) +/- 39(syst)) nb for the low and high Q values, respectively., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures; accepted for publication in Eur.Phys.J. A

The pp->pp phi reaction has been studied at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY-Juelich, using the internal beam and ANKE facility. Total cross sections have been determined at three excess energies epsilon near the production threshold. The differential cross section closest to threshold at epsilon=18.5 MeV exhibits a clear S-wave dominance as well as a noticeable effect due to the proton-proton final state interaction. Taken together with data for pp omega-production, a significant enhancement of the phi/omega ratio of a factor 8 is found compared to predictions based on the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka rule., Comment: 4 Pages, 3 Figures, 1 Table, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett

Indications for the production of a neutral excited hyperon in the reaction pp -> p K^+ Y^{0*} are observed in an experiment performed with the ANKE spectrometer at COSY-J\"ulich at a beam momentum of 3.65 GeV/c. Two final states were investigated simultaneously, viz. Y^{0*} -> pi^+X^- and pi^-X^+, and consistent results were obtained in spite of the quite different experimental conditions. The parameters of the hyperon state are M(Y^{0*})= (1480 +/- 15) MeV/c^2 and Gamma(Y^{0*})= (60 +/- 15) MeV/c^2. The production cross section is of the order of few hundred nanobarns. Since the isospin of the Y^{0*} has not been determined here, it could either be an observation of the Sigma(1480), a one-star resonance of the PDG tables, or alternatively a Lambda hyperon. Relativistic quark models for the baryon spectrum do not predict any excited hyperon in this mass range and so the Y^{0*} may be of exotic nature., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.Lett

The reaction pp->pK+Y has been studied with the ANKE spectrometer at COSY-Juelich in order to investigate heavy hyperon production. The missing mass spectra MM(pK+) have been analyzed and compared with Monte Carlo simulations. Indications for a hyperon resonance Y0*(1480) have been found., Comment: Baryons2004 Proceedings, 4 pages, 6 figures

The reaction pp -> dpi+eta has been measured at a beam energy of T=2.65 GeV (p=3.46 GeV/c) using the ANKE spectrometer at COSY-Juelich. The missing mass distribution of the detected dpi+ pairs exhibits a peak around the eta mass on top of a strong background of multi-pion pp -> dpi+(n(pi)) events. The differential cross section d^4(sigma)/d(Omega_d)d(Omega_pi+)d(p_d)d(p_pi+) for the reaction pp -> dpi+eta has been determined model independently for two regions of phase space. Employing a dynamical model for the a0+ production allows one then to deduce a total cross section of sigma(pp -> da0+ -> dpi+eta)=(1.1 +/- 0.3_(stat) +/- 0.7_(syst)) microbarn for the production of pi+eta via the scalar a0+(980) resonance and sigma(pp -> dpi+eta) = (3.5 +/- 0.3_(stat) +/- 1.0_(syst)) microbarn for the non-resonant production. Using the same model as for the interpretation of recent results from ANKE for the reaction pp -> dK+(bar(K0)), the ratio of the total cross sections is sigma(pp -> d(K+(bar(K0)))_(L=0))/sigma(pp -> da0+ -> dpi+eta) = 0.029 +/- 0.008_(stat) +/- 0.009_(syst), which is in agreement with branching ratios in the literature., Comment: 5 pages, 8 figures, 1 table

The production of K^+ mesons in pA (A = D, C, Cu, Ag, Au) collisions has been investigated at the COoler SYnchrotron COSY-J\"ulich for beam energies T_p = 1.0 - 2.3 GeV. Double differential inclusive pC cross sections at forward angles theta < 12 degrees as well as the target-mass dependence of the K^+ momentum spectra have been measured with the ANKE spectrometer. Far below the free NN threshold at T_{NN}=1.58 GeV the spectra reveal a high degree of collectivity in the target nucleus. From the target-mass dependence of the cross sections at higher energies, the repulsive in-medium potential of K^+ mesons can be deduced. Using pN cross-section parameterisations from literature and our measured pD data we derive a cross-section ratio of sigma(pn -> K^+ X) / sigma(pp -> K^+ X) ~ (3-4)., Comment: Accepted for publication in EPJ A; 17 pages, 10 figures, 11 tables

The reaction pp->d K+ Kbar0 has been investigated at an excess energy of Q=46 MeV above the (K+ Kbar0) threshold with ANKE at COSY-Juelich. From the detected coincident dK+ pairs about 1000 events with a missing Kbar0 were identified, corresponding to a total cross section of sigma(pp->d K+ Kbar0)=(38 +/- 2(stat) +/- 14(syst)) nb. Invariant-mass and angular distributions have been jointly analyzed and reveal s-wave dominance between the two kaons, accompanied by a p-wave between the deuteron and the kaon system. This is interpreted in terms of a0+(980)-resonance production., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; accepted by Phys. Rev. Lett

The ratio of forward K+ production on copper, silver and gold targets to that on carbon has been measured at proton beam energies between 1.5 and 2.3 GeV as a function of the kaon momentum p_K using the ANKE spectrometer at COSY-Juelich. The strong suppression in the ratios observed for p_K<200-250 MeV/c can be ascribed to a combination of Coulomb and nuclear repulsion in the K+A system. This opens a new way to investigate the interaction of K+-mesons in the nuclear medium. Our data are consistent with a K+A nuclear potential of V_K~20 MeV at low kaon momenta and normal nuclear density. Given the sensitivity of the data to the kaon potential, the current experimental precision might allow one to determine V_K to better than 3 MeV., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures; changed content

Total and differential cross sections from literature, on the production of K+ mesons in pA interactions at projectile energies between T=0.8 and 2.9 GeV, covering the transition across the free nucleon-nucleon threshold at 1.58 GeV, have been investigated. From the target-mass dependence of the production cross sections no evidence for the expected change of the dominant reaction mechanism from two-step to direct kaon production was found. At T=1.0 GeV the A dependences of the total cross sections and of the most recent data from COSY-Juelich, differential cross sections measured under forward angles, are strongly different. The invariant K+ production cross sections show an overall exponential scaling behavior with the squared four-momentum transfer between the beam proton and the produced K+ meson for t< -0.05 GeV^2 independent of the beam energy and emission angle. The data from COSY-Juelich reveal a strongly different t dependence in the region of t>0 GeV^2. Further data at forward angles and different beam energies should be taken in order to explore this region of kinematically extreme conditions., Comment: 9 Pages, 11 Figures

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., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

The near-forward cross section for the pp -> pn pi^+ reaction has been measured at 492 MeV by using the large acceptance ANKE magnetic spectrometer placed at an internal target position of the storage ring COSY-Juelich. Protons and pions emitted near zero degrees were detected in coincidence, and those with theta_pi <= 2 degrees and theta_p <= 2.5degrees were subjected to detailed analysis. Under these conditions, the excitation energy in the np system was below 3 MeV over the measured momentum range. This is the region of the np final-state-interaction peak, which was measured with a resolution of a fraction of an MeV. The shape of the peak allows one to conclude that the fraction of final spin-singlet np pairs is below about 10%. By using the results of scattering theory, this limit is confirmed through a comparison with the cross section for pp -> d pi^+. The smallness of the singlet contribution is consistent with trends seen in lower energy data., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures