Eur. Phys. J. C (2024) 84: 820
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13056-2

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

$K_S^0$ meson production in inelastic p+p interactions at 31, 40 and 80 $\text{Ge}\text{V}/c$ beam momentum measured by NA61$/$SHINE at the CERN SPS

¹ National Nuclear Research Center, Baku, Azerbaijan
² Faculty of Physics, University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria
³ Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia
⁴ LPNHE, University of Paris VI and VII, Paris, France
⁵ Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
⁶ University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
⁷ Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest, Hungary
⁸ Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
⁹ Institute for Particle and Nuclear Studies, Tsukuba, Japan
¹⁰ Okayama University, Okayama, Japan
¹¹ University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
¹² University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
¹³ Jan Kochanowski University, Kielce, Poland
¹⁴ Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków, Poland
¹⁵ National Centre for Nuclear Research, Warsaw, Poland
¹⁶ Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
¹⁷ AGH-University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland
¹⁸ University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland
¹⁹ University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
²⁰ University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland
²¹ Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland
²² Affiliated with an institution covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
²³ University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
²⁴ Fermilab, Batavia, USA
²⁵ University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, USA
²⁶ University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
²⁷ University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA
²⁸ University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
²⁹ University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

^ad marjan.cirkovic@cern.ch

Received: 1 March 2024
Accepted: 17 June 2024
Published online: 15 August 2024

Abstract

The yields of $K_S^0$ mesons have been measured in inelastic p+p interactions at incident projectile momenta of 31, 40 and 80 $\text{Ge}\text{V}/c$ ($\sqrt{s_{\mathit{NN}}}=7.7,8.8$ and 12.3 $\text{Ge}\text{V}$, respectively). The data were recorded by the NA61$/$SHINE spectrometer at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron and the $K_S^0$ mesons identified via their decays into ${\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}$ pairs. Double-differential distributions are presented as function of transverse momentum and rapidity. The mean multiplicities of $K_S^0$ mesons were determined to be $(5.95\pm 0.19(stat)\pm 0.30(sys))\times {10}^{-2}$ at 31 $\text{Ge}\text{V}/c$, $(7.61\pm 0.13(stat)\pm 0.43(sys))\times {10}^{-2}$ at 40 $\text{Ge}\text{V}/c$ and $(11.58\pm 0.12(stat)\pm 0.55(sys))\times {10}^{-2}$ at 80 $\text{Ge}\text{V}/c$. The results on $K_S^0$ production are compared with the production of charged kaons in corresponding reactions and with model calculations (Epos1.99, SMASH 2.0 and PHSD) as well as with published data from other experiments.