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Density dependence in kaonic atoms

1993; Elsevier BV; Volume: 308; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0370-2693(93)90593-7

1873-2445

E. Friedman, A. Gal, C.J. Batty,

Astronomical and nuclear sciences

We study phenomenologically the density dependence of the K− optical potential Vopt(r) at zero kinetic energy by fitting it to a comprehensive set of atomic data across the periodic table. Two families of solutions offer improved fits over that for the standard teffϱ(r) paraameterization of Vopt. One family contains solutions for Vopt with RMS radii larger than those of the matter density ϱ, as expected from finite-range folding corrections. The other family offers substantially improved fits to the data and gives rise to Re Vopt of a size smaller than that of ϱ. The new family contains solutions for which Vopt is attractive inside the nucleus and on its surface, becoming repulsive at large distances. The repulsion can be made to approximately agree with the low-density limit Vopt→tϱ where t is the free-space KN t matrix. It is argued that this sign flip might be expected from the underlying nuclear propagation of the Λ(1405).