Journal article

Publication year: 2017

Pages: 199-260

Journal: Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics

Volume number: 97

ISSN: 0146-6410

eISSN: 1873-2224

Open access status: Green

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ppnp.2017.08.002

Publisher: Elsevier

Abstract: 
Recent experiments studying the meson-nucleus interaction to extract meson-nucleus potentials are reviewed. The real part of the potentials quantifies whether the interaction is attractive or repulsive while the imaginary part describes the meson absorption in nuclei. The review is focused on mesons which are sufficiently long-lived to potentially form meson-nucleus quasi-bound states. The presentation is confined to meson production off nuclei in photon-, pion-, proton-, and light-ion induced reactions and heavy-ion collisions at energies near the production threshold. Tools to extract the potential parameters are presented. In most cases, the real part of the potential is determined by comparing measured meson momentum distributions or excitation functions with collision model or transport model calculations. The imaginary part is extracted from transparency ratio measurements. Results on K+, K-0, K-, eta, eta', omega and phi mesons are presented and compared with theoretical predictions. The interaction of K+ and K-0 mesons with nuclei is found to be weakly repulsive, while the K-, eta, eta', omega and phi meson-nucleus potentials are attractive, however, with widely different strengths. Because of meson absorption in the nuclear medium the imaginary parts of the meson-nucleus potentials are all negative, again with a large spread. An outlook on planned experiments in the charm sector is given. In view of the determined potential parameters, the criteria and chances for experimentally observing meson-nucleus quasi-bound states are discussed. The most promising candidates appear to be the eta and eta' mesons. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Harvard Citation style: Metag, V., Nanova, M. and Paryev, E. (2017) Meson-nucleus potentials and the search for meson-nucleus bound states, Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics, 97, pp. 199-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ppnp.2017.08.002

APA Citation style: Metag, V., Nanova, M., & Paryev, E. (2017). Meson-nucleus potentials and the search for meson-nucleus bound states. Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics. 97, 199-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ppnp.2017.08.002