Production of charged pions, kaons and antikaons in relativistic $\chem{C+C}$ and $\chem{C+Au}$ collisions

F. Laue; I. Böttcher; M. Dębowski; A. Förster; E. Grosse; P. Koczoń; B. Kohlmeyer; M. Mang; M. Menzel; L. Naumann; H. Oeschler; F. Pühlhofer; E. Schwab; P. Senger; Y. Shin; J. Speer; H. Ströbele; C. Sturm; G. Surówka; F. Uhlig; A. Wagner; W. Waluś (KaoS Collaboration)

doi:doi:10.1007/s100500070024

2021 Impact factor 3.131

Hadrons and Nuclei

Eur. Phys. J. A 9, 397-410

Production of charged pions, kaons and antikaons in relativistic $\ensuremath{\mathsf{C+C}}$ and $\ensuremath{\mathsf{C+Au}}$ collisions

F. Laue¹ - I. Böttcher³ - M. Debowski⁵ - A. Förster² - E. Grosse^6,7 - P. Koczon¹ - B. Kohlmeyer³ - M. Mang¹ - M. Menzel³ - L. Naumann⁶ - H. Oeschler² - F. Pühlhofer³ - E. Schwab¹ - P. Senger¹ - Y. Shin⁴ - J. Speer³ - H. Ströbele⁴ - C. Sturm² - G. Surówka^1,5 - F. Uhlig² - A. Wagner⁶ - W. Walus⁵
(KaoS Collaboration)

¹ Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung, D-64220 Darmstadt, Germany
² Technische Universität Darmstadt, D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany
³ Phillips Universität, D-35037 Marburg, Germany
⁴ Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, D-60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
⁵ Jagiellonian University, PL-30059 Kraków, Poland
⁶ Forschungszentrum Rossendorf, D-01314 Dresden, Germany
⁷ Technische Universität Dresden, D-01314 Dresden, Germany

Received: 10 December 1999
Communicated by D. Guerreau

Abstract
Production cross-sections of charged pions, kaons and antikaons have been measured in C+C and C+Au collisions at beam energies of 1.0 and 1.8 AGeV for different polar emission angles. The kaon and antikaon energy spectra can be described by Boltzmann distributions whereas the pion spectra exhibit an additional enhancement at low energies. The pion multiplicity per participating nucleon $M(\pi^+)/\langle A_{\rm part}\rangle$ is a factor of about 3 smaller in C+Au than in C+C collisions at 1.0 AGeV whereas it differs only little for the C and the Au target at a beam energy of 1.8 AGeV. The K⁺ multiplicities per participating nucleon M(K⁺)/ $\langle A_{\rm part}\rangle$ are independent of the target size at 1 AGeV and at 1.8 AGeV. The K^- multiplicity per participating nucleon M(K^-)/ $\langle A_{\rm part}\rangle$ is reduced by a factor of about 2 in C+Au as compared to C+C collisions at 1.8 AGeV. This effect might be caused by the absorption of antikaons in the heavy target nucleus. Transport model calculations underestimate the K^-/K⁺ ratio for C+C collisions at 1.8 AGeV by a factor of about 4 if in-medium modifications of K-mesons are neglected.