Elastic and inelastic scattering of K+ mesons on deformed nuclei

Various aspects of the scattering of medium energy K⁺ mesons on deformed nuclei are investigated in the light of a specific example, viz. the scattering of 800 MeV/c positive kaons on ¹⁵²Sm. The effects of coupled channels are found to be significant despite the fact that the K⁺ meson is a rather weakly interacting hadronic probe. The localization of the reaction mechanism on a deformed target is discussed for both protons and K⁺ mesons to compare the extent of surface and volume probing capability of these two projectiles. The results show the remarkable sensitivity of the elastic and inelastic K⁺ differential cross sections to the differences between the neutron and proton density distributions in deformed nuclei.