HYPERNUCLEUS FORMATION AFTER ANTIPROTON ANNIHILATION ON NUCLEI

The hypernucleus formation after antiproton annihilation on atomic nuclei is studied in the frame of an intranuclear cascade picture. The basic mechanism is the formation of an antikaon in the annihilation itself, followed by the production and the capture of a hyperon. The associated production by other mesons is also considered. Comparison with experimental data of the PS177 experiment at LEAR is carried out. It is shown that the excitation of the target by all the cascading particles plays a crucial role for the determination of fraction of the hypernucleus yield which is detectable by the above-mentioned experiment. Our results are roughly consistent with the observed production rates. The kaon-hypernucleus angular correlation pattern is investigated and seems to disagree with recent measurements. The mass residues distribution is also studied. The question of the B = 1 annihilations is investigated and is shown that this process could be present with a frequency of less than 20%. © 1990.