Analysis of kaon spectra at SIS energies - what remains from the KN potential

We study the reaction Au+Au at 1.48 AGeV and analyze the influence of the KN optical potential on cm spectra and azimuthal distributions at mid-rapidity. We find a significant change of the yields but only slight changes in the shapes of the distributions when turning off the optical potential. However, the spectra show contributions from different reaction times, where early kaons contribute stronger to higher momenta and late kaons to lower momenta. Azimuthal distributions of the kaons at mid-rapidity show a strong centrality dependence. Their shape is influenced by the KN optical potential as well as by re-scattering.Comment: SQM 2003 proceedings, 4 figures, 6 page

Directed flow of neutral strange particles at AGS

Directed flow of neutral strange particles in heavy ion collisions at AGS is studied in the ART transport model. Using a lambda mean-field potential which is 2/3 of that for a nucleon as predicted by the constituent quark model, lambdas are found to flow with protons but with a smaller flow parameter as observed in experiments. For kaons, their repulsive potential, which is calculated from the impulse approximation using the measured kaon-nucleon scattering length, leads to a smaller anti-flow than that shown in the preliminary E895 data. Implications of this discrepancy are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Abundance of Delta Resonances in 58Ni+58Ni Collisions between 1 and 2 AGeV

Charged pion spectra measured in 58Ni-58Ni collisions at 1.06, 1.45 and 1.93 AGeV are interpreted in terms of a thermal model including the decay of Delta resonances. The transverse momentum spectra of pions are well reproduced by adding the pions originating from the Delta-resonance decay to the component of thermal pions, deduced from the high transverse momentum part of the pion spectra. About 10 and 18% of the nucleons are excited to Delta states at freeze-out for beam energies of 1 and 2 AGeV, respectively.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX with 3 included figures; submitted to Physics Letters

Proton-proton correlations in central collisions of Ni-Ni at 1.93 A.GeV and the space-time extent of the emission source

Small-angle correlations of proton pairs produced in central Ni+Ni collisions at a beam energy of 1.93 A.GeV are investigated with the FOPI detector system at GSI Darmstadt. A well-defined emission source is selected by triggering on central events which comprise about 8% of the total cross section. Simultaneous comparison of longitudinal and transverse correlation functions with the predictions of the Koonin model allows to unravel the space-time ambiguity of the emission process. Taking into account the strong collective expansion of the participant zone, which introduces a reduction of the extracted source radius of more than 30%, r.m.s. radius and emission time parameters of R_r_m_s = (4.2#+-#1.2) fm and t_r_m_s = (11"+"7_-_5) fm/c are extracted, respectively. In contrast, the analysis of the angle-integrated correlation function gives an upper limit R_r_m_s = (7.0 #+-# 1.4) fm of the source radius. (orig.)Available from FIZ Karlsruhe / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman