Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
1854762 | Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics | 2006 | 103 Pages |
The article reviews the physics related to kaon and antikaon production in heavy ion reactions at intermediate energies. Chiral dynamics predicts substantial modifications of the kaon properties in a dense nuclear environment. The status of the theoretical predictions as well as experimental evidence for medium effects such as repulsive/attractive mass shifts for K+/K−K+/K− are reviewed. In the vicinity of the thresholds, and even more pronounced below threshold, the production of strangeness is a highly collective process. Starting from elementary reaction channels the phenomenology of K+K+ and K−K− production, i.e. freeze-out densities, timescales etc. as derived from experiment and theoretical transport calculations is presented. Below threshold kaon production shows a high sensitivity to the nuclear compression reached in heavy ion reactions. This allows us to put constraints on the nuclear equation-of-state which are finally discussed.