Production of cascade hypernuclei via the (K⁻, K⁺) reaction within a quark-meson coupling model

Abstract

We study the production of bound hypernuclei Be Ξ-12 and Mg Ξ-28 via the (K -, K +) reaction on 12C and 28Si targets, respectively, within a covariant effective Lagrangian model, employing Ξ bound state spinors derived from the latest quark-meson coupling model as well as Dirac single-particle wave functions. The K +Ξ - production vertex is described by excitation, propagation and decay of Λ and σ resonance states in the initial collision of a K - meson with a target proton in the incident channel. The parameters of the resonance vertices are fixed by describing the available data on total and differential cross sections for the p(K -, K +)Ξ - reaction. We find that both the elementary and hypernuclear production cross sections are dominated by the contributions from the Λ(1520) intermediate resonant state. The 0° differential cross sections for the formation of simple s-state Ξ - particle-hole states peak at a beam momentum around 1.0 GeV/c, with a value in excess of 1 μb. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.