Search for double-strangeness production in pbar-p annihilation

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-K. The 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.
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