Hypernuclear physics

The contributed papers submitted to the session C Hypernuclear and kaon physics and not presented orally at the Conference are briefly reviewed here.Rapporteur talk at the symposium Mesons and Light Nuclei IV, Bechyn, Czechoslovakia September 5–10, 1988.     

The \overline{\mbox{\sf P}}{\sf ANDA} detector at FAIR

Selected problems of collisional processes in exotic atoms are discussed. The emphasis is on the collisional effects in antiprotonic helium including formation of antiprotonic atoms, collisional quenching of hot and thermalized metastable antiprotonic helium, shift and broadening of E1 and M1 spectral lines.     

Hypernuclear and strangeness physics program at J-PARC

The inauguration ceremony of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) was held on 6 July 2009, celebrating the completion of its construction. Now, the beam commissioning of the 50-GeV main proton synchrotron is in progress to improve the beam intensity and quality. Many important experimental programs are planned with the improved beams. In this report, some of them are introduced.     

A\overline {Poincar\acute{e}} gauge theory of gravity

We develop a gauge theory of gravity on the basis of the principal fiber bundle over the four-dimensional space-timeM with the covering groupP¯ ₀ of the proper orthochronous Poincaré group. The field components are constructed with the connection coefficients , and with a Higgs-type field. A Lorentz metricg is introduced with , which are then identified with the components of duals of the Vierbein fields. Associated with there is a spinor structure onM. For Lagrangian densityL, which is a function of , ,, matter field , and oftheir first derivatives, we give the conditions imposed by the requirement of the gauge invariance. The Lagrangian densityL is restricted to be of the formL =L ^tot (, T ^klm ,R ^klmn , _k , ), in whichT ^klm ,R ^klmn are the field strengths of , , respectively. Identities and conservation laws following from the gauge invariance are given. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the energy momentum conservation law follows from theinternal translational invariance. The field equation of is automatically satisfied, if those of and of are both satisfied. The possible existence of matter fields with intrinsic energy momentum is pointed out. When is a field with vanishing intrinsic energy momentum, the present theory practically agrees with the conventional Poincaré gauge theory of gravity, except for the seemingly trivial terms in the expression of the spin-angular momentum density. A condition leading to a Riemann-Cartan space-time is given. The field holds a key position in the formulation.     

${K{\overline K}}$ photoproduction and S- P-wave interference

Results of a new analysis of the K ⁺ K^- photoproduction at two photon energies, and , with a particular emphasis on the S-wave production are presented. We show that the proper treatment of all the helicity components of the S- and P-waves enables one to eliminate the reported discrepancies in the extraction of the S-wave photoproduction cross section from the experimental data.Received: 28 August 2003, Revised: 3 February 2004, Published online: 23 March 2004     

Hypernuclear physics studies of the PANDA experiment at FAIR

Hypernuclear research will be one of the main topics addressed by the PANDA experiment at the planned Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research FAIR at Darmstadt (Germany). http://www. gsi.de, http://www.gsi.de/fair/ Thanks to the use of stored \(\overline {p}\) beams, copious production of double Λ hypernuclei is expected at the PANDA experiment, which will enable high precision γ spectroscopy of such nuclei for the first time, and consequently a unique chance to explore the hyperon-hyperon interaction. In particular, ambiguities of past experiments in determining the strength of the ΛΛ interaction will be avoided thanks to the excellent energy precision of a few keV (FWHM) achieved by germanium detectors. Such a resolution capability is particularly needed to resolve the small energy spacing of the order of (10–100) keV, which is characteristic from the spin doublet in hypernuclei the so -called ”hypernuclear fine structure”. In comparison to previous experiments, PANDA will benefit from a novel technique to assign the various observable γ-transitions in a unique way to specific double hypernuclei by exploring various light targets. Nevertheless, the ability to carry out unique assignments requires a devoted hypernuclear detector setup. This consists of a primary nuclear target for the production of \({\Xi }^{-}+\overline {\Xi }\) pairs, a secondary active target for the hypernuclei formation and the identification of associated decay products and a germanium array detector to perform γ spectroscopy. Moreover, one of the most challenging issues of this project is the fact that all detector systems need to operate in the presence of a high magnetic field and a large hadronic background. Accordingly, the need of an innovative detector concept will require dramatic improvements to fulfil these conditions and that will likely lead to a new generation of detectors. In the present talk details concerning the current status of the activities related to the detector developments for this challenging programme will be given. Among these improvements is the new concept for a cooling system for the germanium detector based on a electro-mechanical device. In the present work, the cooling efficiency of such devices has been successfully tested, showing their capability to reach liquid nitrogen temperatures and therefore the possibility to use them as a good alternative to the standard liquid nitrogen dewars. Furthermore, since the momentum resolution of low momentum particles is crucial for the unique identification of hypernuclei, an analysis procedure for improving the momentum resolution in few layer silicon based trackers is presented.     

Time-like nucleon form factor measurements at \overline{\textbf{P}}\textbf{ANDA}

The electromagnetic probe is an excellent tool to investigate the structure of the nucleon. The nearly 4π detector PANDA, to be installed on the FAIR accelerator complex at Darmstadt, will allow to make a precise determination of the electromagnetic form factors of the proton in the time-like (TL) region with unprecedented precision. In the framework of the one-photon exchange, the center of mass unpolarized differential cross section of the reaction $\overline{p} p \rightarrow e^+ e^- $ is a linear combination of the squared moduli of the electric $G^{p}_E$ and magnetic $G^{p}_M$ proton form factors. The precise measurement of the angular distribution over almost full angular range then directly gives these quantities. Only two experiments have provided the ratio $R = {|G^{p}_E|/|G^{p}_M|}$ but with very large statistical uncertainties. Within PANDA, there is a unique opportunity to measure separately the moduli of these two proton form factors $G^{p}_E$ and $G^{p}_M$ in good conditions, up to around q ² = 14 GeV² .     

Progress in precision laser spectroscopy of{\displaystyle\overline{p}}-He

The mass of the antiproton (the antiproton-electron mass ratio $m_{\overline{p}}/m_e$ ) can be deduced from laser spectroscopy measurements of antiprotonic helium, compared to 3-body QED calculations. The most precise spectroscopy measurements have so far been limited by Doppler-broadening at finite temperatures. The status of our ongoing precision measurements is presented, within the framework of the Asacusa experiment at CERN.     

Nucleon time-like form factors below the \mathrm{N}\overline{\mathrm{N}} threshold

The nucleon magnetic form factors in the unphysical region, i.e., for time-like but below the N threshold, have been obtained by means of dispersion relations in a model-independent way, without any bias towards expected resonances. Space-like and time-like data have been employed, along with a regularization unfolding method to solve the integral equation. Remarkably, resonance structures with peaks for the and and a structure near the threshold are automatically generated. The obtained has a much larger width, whose significance is explored. No evidence is found for a peak at the mass, in spite of the expectation that such a peak exists when there is a sizeable polarized s content in the vector current of the nucleon. Received: 20 January 1999 / Published online: 3 November 1999     

Hypernuclear physics for neutron stars

The role of hypernuclear physics for the physics of neutron stars is delineated. Hypernuclear potentials in dense matter control the hyperon composition of dense neutron star matter. The three-body interactions of nucleons and hyperons determine the stiffness of the neutron star equation of state and thereby the maximum neutron star mass. Two-body hyperon–nucleon and hyperon–hyperon interactions give rise to hyperon pairing which exponentially suppresses cooling of neutron stars via the direct hyperon URCA processes. Nonmesonic weak reactions with hyperons in dense neutron star matter govern the gravitational wave emissions due to the r-mode instability of rotating neutron stars.     

Feasibility studies of the time-like proton electromagnetic form factor measurements with \overline{{P}}ANDA at FAIR

The possibility of measuring the proton electromagnetic form factors in the time-like region at FAIR with the $ \overline{{P}}$ ANDA detector is discussed. Detailed simulations on signal efficiency for the annihilation of $ \bar{{p}}$ + p into a lepton pair as well as for the most important background channels have been performed. It is shown that precise measurements of the differential cross-section of the reaction $ \bar{{p}}$ + p $ \rightarrow$ e ^- + e ⁺ can be obtained in a wide kinematical range. The determination of the ratio R of the moduli of the electric and magnetic proton form factors will be possible up to a value of momentum transfer squared of q ² ? 14 (GeV/c)^2 with absolute precision from 0.01 to 0.5 (for R ～ 1 . The total $ \bar{{p}}$ + p $ \rightarrow$ e ^- + e ⁺ cross-section will be measured up to q ² ? 28 (GeV/c)^2. The results obtained from simulated events are compared to the existing data. Sensitivity to the two-photon exchange mechanism is also investigated.