ϕ meson is an ideal probe to explore mass modification inside the nucleus due to partial restoration of chiral symmetry with its narrow width. The modification of ϕ mass is related to the strange-quark condensate 〈s̄s〉 in a finite density. J-PARC E88 has been proposed as an experiment to study the modification of ϕ mass inside nuclei in proton–nucleus collisions. Complementary to ϕ→e+e− decay measurements at J-PARC E16, E88 will measure high-statistics ϕ→K+K− decays of about 1 M in p+C, p+Cu, and p+Pb collisions by deploying kaon identification detectors at forward angles in the E16 spectrometer. Utilizing the high-statistics data, the momentum and polarization dependence of mass modification will be studied to evaluate the strange quark condensate in nucleons, and Lorentz-symmetry breaking effects. In this paper, we will discuss physics goals, the experimental design and feasibility, the performance of kaon identification detectors, and the timeline of the E88.
Read full abstract