Eur. Phys. J. C (2007) 51: 825-831
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-007-0338-z

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

On kaon production in e⁺e^- and semi-inclusive DIS reactions

¹ Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, Tzarigradsko Chaussee 72, Sofia, 1784, Bulgaria
² Imperial College, London, UK

^* e-mail: echristo@inrne.bas.bg

Received: 13 December 2006
Revised: 22 May 2007
Published online: 1 August 2007

Abstract

We consider semi-inclusive unpolarized DIS for the production of charged kaons and the different possibilities to test the conventionally used assumptions s-s̄=0 and D_d ^K+-K-=0. The tests considered have the advantage that they do not require any knowledge of the fragmentation functions. We also show that measurements of both charged and neutral kaons would allow for the determination of the kaon fragmentation functions D_q ^K++K- solely from SIDIS measurements, and we discuss the comparison of (D_u-D_d)^K+-K- obtained independently in SIDIS and e⁺e^- reactions. All analyses are performed in LO and NLO in QCD. The feasibility of the tests to HERMES SIDIS data is considered.