Relativistic symmetry breaking in light kaonic nuclei

Abstract

As the experimental data from kaonic atoms and $ K^{-}N$ scatterings imply that the $ K^{-}$ -nucleon intenraction is strongly attractive at saturation density, there is a possibility to form $ K^{-}$ -nuclear bound states or kaonic nuclei. In this work, we investigate the ground-state properties of the light kaonic nuclei with the relativistic mean-field theory. It is found that the strong attraction between $ K^{-}$ and nucleons reshapes the scalar and vector meson fields, leading to the remarkable enhancement of the nuclear density in the interior of light kaonic nuclei and the manifest shift of the single-nucleon energy spectra and magic numbers therein. As a consequence, the pseudospin symmetry is shown to be violated together with enlarged spin-orbit splittings in these kaonic nuclei.