Eur. Phys. J. C (2009) 61: 207-221
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-009-1005-3

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

V ⁰ production in p+A collisions at  GeV

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, China
⁴ Institute of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
⁵ Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 12489, Berlin, Germany
⁶ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Bologna and INFN Sezione di Bologna, 40126, Bologna, Italy
⁷ Department of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 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
²⁰ Lehrstuhl für Informatik V, Universität Mannheim, 68131, Mannheim, Germany
²¹ University of Maribor, 2000, Maribor, Slovenia
²² Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, 117218, Moscow, Russia
²³ Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Werner-Heisenberg-Institut, 80805, München, Germany
²⁴ Department 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

^* e-mail: michael.medinnis@desy.de

Received: 2 December 2008
Revised: 6 March 2009
Published online: 8 April 2009

Abstract

Inclusive doubly differential cross sections d ² σ _pA /dx _F   dp _T ² as a function of Feynman-x (x _F ) and transverse momentum (p _T ) for the production of K _S ⁰ , Λ and in proton-nucleus interactions at 920 GeV are presented. The measurements were performed by HERA-B in the negative x _F range (−0.12<x _F <0.0) and for transverse momenta up to p _T =1.6 GeV/c. Results for three target materials: carbon, titanium and tungsten are given. The ratios of production cross sections are presented and discussed. The Cronin effect is clearly observed for all three V ⁰ species. The atomic number dependence is parameterized as σ _pA =σ _pN ⋅A ^α where σ _pN is the proton-nucleon cross section. The measured values of α are all near one. The results are compared with EPOS 1.67 and PYTHIA 6.3. EPOS reproduces the data to within ≈20% except at very low transverse momentum.