KAON INELASTIC-SCATTERING AND CHARGE-EXCHANGE ON NUCLEI

We present the results of calculations of kaon inelastic and charge exchange reactions on nuclei, based on the microscopic particle-hole shell model. Both K+ and K- inelastic scattering on C12 are discussed for incident momenta plab=300 MeV/c and 800 MeV/c. In addition, we examine the charge exchange process Si30(K-,K0)Al30 at 300 MeV/c. We employ the distorted wave impulse approximation, using a transition operator constructed from free space K-nucleon amplitudes taken from analyses of two-body data. For the off-shell extrapolation of the two-body t matrix, required in the many-body problem, we use a separable form factor obtained by solving the inverse scattering problem. The inelastic scattering results are found to be insensitive to the presence of the off-shell form factor. We find that normal parity T=0 and 1 states dominate the nuclear response to both K+ and K-. At 300 MeV/c, some qualitative differences in the inelastic scattering predictions arise from choosing different elementary amplitudes from the literature. Thus kaon-nucleus scattering may shed some light on ambiguities in the low energy free space interactions of kaons. At 800 MeV/c, there is much less uncertainty in the two-body t matrix, so we can focus our attention on nuclear structure aspects. We compare the kaons with pions, electrons, protons, and in terms of their inelastic scattering and charge exchange properties. By emphasizing nuclear structure aspects such as the excitation of high spin states and the splitting of the T< and T> components of giant resonances, we show that kaons are very promising as a nuclear probe. NUCLEAR REACTIONS, NUCLEAR STRUCTURE C12(K,K)C12* plab300-800 MeV/c; Si30(K-, K0)A130*, plab=300 MeV/c theoretical estimates based on DWIA for kaon inelastic and charge exchange dd; virtues of kaons as nuclear structure probe. © 1979 The American Physical Society.