Search for double-strangeness production in pbar-p annihilation
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Europe/Rome
Aula Leale - Edificio 22 (Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati)
Aula Leale - Edificio 22
Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati
Via E. Fermi. 40
00044 Frascati
Description
Weise [1] and Kienle [2] discussed recently the possibility to produce and study doublestrange
nuclei with stopped antiproton annihilation reaction on light nuclei, like:
pbar +4He → K++ K+ + pnnK-KThe
detection of two kaons in antiproton annihilation at rest in a nuclear target is an excellent
signature to unravel the existence of such double-bound nuclear clusters.
It would be very exciting to produce and study “double-strange nuclei” in view of the
prediction of Akaishi and Yamazaki that double-antikaon bound nuclear systems with
strangeness (S = -2) will be formed, with binding energies up to 400 MeV. Such binding energies
might result in an increase of the average density to more than 3 times the average nuclear
density. If such dense (S = -2) clusters are formed, conditions in the phase diagram might be
reached where phase transition to kaon condensation or colour superconductivity occurs at low
temperature.
A first hint that double-antikaon clusters were formed was found in a new analysis of the
OBELIX data [3].
In the following, an experimental setup will be described to search for the existence of
such exiting states using a gaseous helium target and a TPC with GEM readout.