Deep Subthreshold Xi- Production in Ar+KCl Reactions at 1.76A GeV

Agakishiev, G.; Balanda, A.; Bassini, R.; Belver, D.; Belyaev, A. V.; Blanco, A.; Böhmer, M.; Boyard, J. L.; Braun Munzinger, P.; Cabanelas, P.; Castro, E.; Chernenko, S.; Christ, T.; Destefanis, MARCO GIOVANNI; Díaz, J.; Dohrmann, F.; Dybczak, A.; Eberl, T.; Fabbietti, L.; Fateev, O. V.; Finocchiaro, P.; Fonte, P.; Friese, J.; Fröhlich, I.; Galatyuk, T.; Garzón, J. A.; Gernhäuser, R.; Gil, A.; Gilardi, C.; Golubeva, M.; González Díaz, D.; Guber, F.; Hennino, T.; Holzmann, R.; Iori, I.; Ivashkin, A.; Jurkovic, M.; Kämpfer, B.; Kanaki, K.; Karavicheva, T.; Kirschner, D.; Koenig, I.; Koenig, W.; Kolb, B. W.; Kotte, R.; Krizek, F.; Krücken, R.; Kühn, W.; Kugler, A.; Kurepin, A.; Lang, S.; Lange, J. S.; Lapidus, K.; Liu, T.; Lopes, L.; Lorenz, M.; Maier, L.; Mangiarotti, A.; Markert, J.; Metag, V.; Michalska, B.; Michel, J.; Mishra, D.; Morinière, E.; Mousa, J.; Müntz, C.; Naumann, L.; Otwinowski, J.; Pachmayer, Y. C.; Palka, M.; Parpottas, Y.; Pechenov, V.; Pechenova, O.; Pietraszko, J.; Przygoda, W.; Ramstein, B.; Reshetin, A.; Roy Stephan, M.; Rustamov, A.; Sadovsky, A.; Sailer, B.; Salabura, P.; Schmah, A.; Sobolev, Y. u. G.; Spataro, STEFANO GIOVANNI; Spruck, B.; Ströbele, H.; Stroth, J.; Sturm, C.; Sudol, M.; Tarantola, A.; Teilab, K.; Tlusty, P.; Traxler, M.; Trebacz, R.; Tsertos, H.; Wagner, V.; Weber, M.; Wisniowski, M.; Wojcik, T.; Wüstenfeld, J.; Yurevich, S.; Zanevsky, Y. V.; Zhou, P.; Zumbruch, P.

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.132301

We report first results on a deep subthreshold production of the doubly strange hyperon Xi- in a heavy-ion reaction. At a beam energy of 1.76A GeV the reaction Ar+KCl was studied with the High Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer at SIS18/GSI. A high-statistics and high-purity Lambda sample was collected, allowing for the investigation of the decay channel Xi- -> Lambda pi+. The deduced Xi-/(Lambda+Sigma0) production ratio of (5.6±1.2)×10-3 is significantly larger than available model predictions.