Search

The AMADEUS Collaboration aims to provide unique experimental constraints to the antikaon-nucleon strong interaction in the regime of nonperturbative QCD. The K− nuclear captures, both at-rest and in-flight, are studied using the monochromatic low-momentum kaon beam (pK ∼ 120 MeV/c) produced at the DAΦNE collider, interacting with the KLOE detector materials. The studies are performed by reconstructing the hyperon-pion and hyperonnucleon final states. In this work a brief description of AMADEUS results for Λπ− and Λp final states is presented.

Recent heavy-ion collision experiments reported a surprisingly short lifetime for the hypertriton, which has been recognized as the hypertriton lifetime puzzle. Our J-PARC E73 experiment contributes to solve this puzzle with an independent experimental method by employing 3He(K−, π0) 3ΛH reaction. In this contribution, we will demonstrate our capability to provide 3ΛH binding energy information by deriving the production cross section ratio, σ3ΛH/σ4ΛH. The production cross section data for 3ΛH and 4ΛH are already available as the pilot run of E73 experiment and data analysis is in progress.

The AMADEUS collaboration is investigating the low-energy antikaon interactions with nucleons and nuclei, taking advantage of the lowmomentum antikaons beam provided by the DAΦNE collider at LNF-INFN. In this work a novel technique is outlined for the measurement of the hyperonnucleon two and three body scattering cross sections. The method consists in producing hyperons by antikaons atomic captures in light nuclear targets, and extrapolating the cross sections from the measurement of the yields of the corresponding elastic final state interactions of the hyperons. The feasibility of this kind of analyses is shown by comparison of calculated Σ0 production in 4He by K− absorption on three nucleons, with a sample of K−12C absorption measured by AMADEUS in collaboration with KLOE. The feasibility of a dedicated high statistics measurement is discussed.

The aim of the AMADEUS experiment is to investigate the lowenergy antikaon interaction with nucleons and nuclei, exploiting the unique lowmomentum beam of kaons produced by the DAΦNE collider at LNF-INFN, to constrain hadronic nuclear physics models in the strangeness -1 sector. As a first step the data collected in 2004/2005 by the KLOE collaboration, consisting in a complex of K− absorptions in H, 4He, 9Be and 12C, was analyzed, leading to the first invariant mass spectroscopic study with very low momentum (about 100 MeV) in-flight K− captures. A dedicated pure Carbon target was also implemented in the central region of the KLOE detector, providing a high statistic reference sample of pure at-rest K− nuclear interaction. The first measurement of the non-resonant transition amplitude $\left| {{T_{{K^ - }n \to \Lambda {\pi ^ - }}}} \right|$| TK−n→Λπ− | at $\sqrt s = 33$s=33 MeV below the ${\text{\bar KN}}$K¯N threshold is presented, in relation with the Λ(1405) properties studies.

The possible existence of deeply-bound $\bar K$K¯-nuclear bound states, kaonic nuclei, has been widely discussed as products of the strongly attractive $\bar K$K¯N interaction in I = 0 channels. Investigations of those exotic states will provide us unique information of the $\bar K$K¯N interaction below the threshold, which is still not fully understood so far. Recently, we observed the simplest kaonic nuclei, $\bar K$K¯NN, having a much deeper binding energy than normal nuclei via inflight (K−, N) reactions at the J-PARC E15 experiment. For further studies, we have proposed a series of experimental programs for the systematic investigation of light kaonic nuclei, from $\bar K$K¯N (Λ(1405)) to $\bar K$K¯NNNN. We will measure the $\bar K$K¯NNN (A = 3) system at the new experiment approved as J-PARC E80, as a first step toward a comprehensive study.

VIP-2 (VIolation of Pauli exclusion principle - 2) is an underground experiment sited in the underground “Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso.” It aims to investigate possible violations of the Pauli Exclusion Principle (PEP) and, in this context, Quantum Gravity models implying violations of PEP. While an upper limit of PEP violation probability is recently published, the data requires further developments of accurate analysis techniques and methods. In this contribution, we present an overview of the methodologies proposed for current and planned analysis.

The X-ray spectroscopy measurements of light kaonic atoms’ deexcitation towards the fundamental level provide unique information on the low-energy Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) in the strangeness sector, being a direct probe of the kaon/nucleon interaction at threshold, unobtainable through the scattering experiments. In this framework, the SIDDHARTA-2 collaboration is going to perform the first kaonic deuterium 2p → 1s transition measurement at the DAΦNE collider of Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare – Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati. Combining this measurement with the kaonic hydrogen one performed by SIDDHARTA in 2009 it will be possible to obtain, in a model-independent way, the isospin-dependent antikaon-nucleon scattering lengths. The paper introduces the SIDDHARTA-2 setup, an upgraded version with respect to the one used for the kaonic hydrogen measurement, dedicated to the ambitious kaonic deuterium measurement, together with the preliminary results obtained during the kaonic helium run, preparatory for the SIDDHARTA-2 data taking campaign.

We briefly report on the search for Deeply Bound Kaonic Nuclear States with AMADEUS in the Σ0p channel following K− absorption on 12C and outline future perspectives for this work.