Eur. Phys. J. A (2008) 38: 1-8
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2008-10647-9

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Interpretation of K⁺¯pair production in pp collisions

¹ Institut für Kernphysik, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425, Jülich, Germany
² Jülich Centre for Hadron Physics, 52425, Jülich, Germany
³ Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, 188300, Gatchina, Russia
⁴ Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bonn, 53115, Bonn, Germany
⁵ Physics and Astronomy Department, UCL, WC1E 6BT, London, UK

^* e-mail: cw@hep.ucl.ac.uk

Received: 28 April 2008
Accepted: 8 September 2008
Published online: 1 October 2008

Abstract

A combined analysis of the published data on thepp →dK ⁺¯⁰ reaction at excess energies of 47.4MeV and 104.7MeV is presented that takes into account final-state interactions in both theK ⁺¯⁰ and ¯⁰ d channels. The strong attraction of the antikaons with nucleons, already noted for thepp →ppK ⁺ K ^- reaction, leads here to very different ¯⁰ d and K^+d distributions, with the former being dominantly in ans -wave and the latter in ap -wave. Evidence is also found from theK ⁺¯⁰ distributions for the production of thea ₀ ⁺(980) scalar resonance. The inclusion of both final-state interactions improves the description of the energy dependence of thepp →dK ⁺¯⁰ total cross-section.