Production of Λ-hypernuclei in A(p,K+)ΛB reactions

Abstract

The production of Λ-hypernuclei in the A(p,K+)ΛB reaction is investigated in the framework of the distorted wave impulse approximation(DWIA). The total cross sections and differential cross sections for various nuclear targets are calculated with an elementary process pN → NKΛ where the additional contributions from the N*(1535) resonance and the final state interaction between p and Λ are included. The dependence of the production cross sections of Λ-hypernuclei on the phenomenological nuclear density and the nucleon number in the target, as well as the distortion effect of the incident proton and outgoing kaon, are also explored. It is shown that the distortion effect tends to decrease the cross sections by a factor of about 3–10. The production cross sections are sensitive to the adopted nuclear density.