Analysis of kaon production at SIS energies

We analyse the production and propagation of pions and kaons in heavy-ion reactions from 0.8-1.8 AGeV within a coupled channel transport approach including the kaon production channels BB --> K+YN, pi B --> K+Y, BB --> NNK (K) over bar, pi B --> NK (K) over bar, K+B --> K+B, and pi pi --> K (K) over bar. Assuming the hyperon self-energy to be 2/3 of the nucleon self-energy we find that all inclusive experimental K+ spectra at SIS energies can be reproduced reasonably well without any self-energies for the kaons although a slightly repulsive kaon potential cannot be excluded by the present data on kaon spectra and flow. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.