https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-007-0237-3
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
K*0 and φ meson production in proton–nucleus interactions at
1
NIKHEF, 1009 DB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2
Department ECM, Faculty of Physics, University of Barcelona, 08028, Barcelona, Spain
3
Institute for High Energy Physics, Beijing, 100039, P.R. China
4
Institute of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P.R. China
5
Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 12489, Berlin, Germany
6
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’ Università di Bologna and INFN Sezione di Bologna, 40126, Bologna, Italy
7
Department of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45221, USA
8
LIP Coimbra, 3004-516, Coimbra, Portugal
9
Niels Bohr Institutet, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark
10
Institut für Physik, Universität Dortmund, 44221, Dortmund, Germany
11
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research Dubna, 141980, Dubna, Moscow region, Russia
12
DESY, 22603, Hamburg, Germany
13
Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, 69117, Heidelberg, Germany
14
Physikalisches Institut, Universität Heidelberg, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany
15
Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, TX, 77204, USA
16
Institute for Nuclear Research, Ukrainian Academy of Science, 03680, Kiev, Ukraine
17
J. Stefan Institute, 1001, Ljubljana, Slovenia
18
University of Ljubljana, 1001, Ljubljana, Slovenia
19
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, USA
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Lehrstuhl für Informatik V, Universität Mannheim, 68131, Mannheim, Germany
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University of Maribor, 2000, Maribor, Slovenia
22
Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, 117259, Moscow, Russia
23
Werner-Heisenberg-Institut, Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, 80805, München, Germany
24
Dept. of Physics, University of Oslo, 0316, Oslo, Norway
25
Fachbereich Physik, Universität Rostock, 18051, Rostock, Germany
26
Fachbereich Physik, Universität Siegen, 57068, Siegen, Germany
27
Institute for Nuclear Research, INRNE-BAS, Sofia, Bulgaria
28
Universiteit Utrecht/NIKHEF, 3584 CB, Utrecht, The Netherlands
29
DESY, 15738, Zeuthen, Germany
30
Physik-Institut, Universität Zürich, 8057, Zürich, Switzerland
31
Dipartimento di Energetica dell’ Università di Firenze and INFN Sezione di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
32
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, 117924, Moscow, Russia
33
Moscow Physical Engineering Institute, 115409, Moscow, Russia
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Moscow State University, 119899, Moscow, Russia
35
Institute for High Energy Physics, Protvino, Russia
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High Energy Physics Institute, 380086, Tbilisi, Georgia
* e-mail: christopher.van.eldik@mpi-hd.mpg.de
Received:
21
June
2006
Published online:
20
February
2007
The inclusive production cross sections of the strange vector mesons K*0, K̄*0, and φ have been measured in interactions of 920 GeV protons with C, Ti, and W targets with the HERA-B detector at the HERA storage ring. Differential cross sections as a function of rapidity and transverse momentum have been measured in the central rapidity region and for transverse momenta up to pT = 3.5 GeV/c. The atomic number dependence is parametrised as σpA=σpN*Aα, where σpN is the proton–nucleon cross section. Within the phase space accessible, α(K*0)=0.86±0.03, α(K̄*0)=0.87±0.03, and α(φ)=0.96±0.02. The total proton–nucleon cross sections, determined by extrapolating the differential measurements to full phase space, are σpN→K*0=(5.06±0.54) mb, σpN→K̄*0=(4.02±0.45) mb, and σpN→φ=(1.17±0.11) mb. For all resonances the Cronin effect is observed; compared to the measurements of Cronin et al. for K± mesons, the measured values of α for φ mesons coincide with those of K+ mesons for all transverse momenta, while the enhancement for K*0/K̄*0 mesons is smaller.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2007