Evidence for a Soft Nuclear Equation-of-State from Kaon Production in Heavy-Ion Collisions.
The production of pions and kaons has been measured in 197Au+197Au collisions at beam energies from 0.6 to 1.5A GeV with the kaon spectrometer at SIS/GSI. The K+ meson multiplicity per nucleon is enhanced in Au+Au collisions by factors up to 6 relative to C+C reactions, whereas the corresponding pion ratio is reduced. The ratio of the K+ meson excitation functions for Au+Au and C+C collisions increases with decreasing beam energy. This behavior is expected for a soft nuclear equation-of-state.
Sturm
C
Technische Universität Darmstadt, D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany.
Böttcher
I
D&ecedil;bowski
M
Förster
A
Grosse
E
Koczo&nacute;
P
Kohlmeyer
B
Laue
F
Mang
M
Naumann
L
Oeschler
H
Pühlhofer
F
Schwab
E
Senger
P
Shin
Y
Speer
J
Ströbele
H
Surówka
G
Uhlig
F
Wagner
A
Walu&sacute;
W