Evidence for a Soft Nuclear Equation-of-State from Kaon Production in Heavy Ion Collisions

nucl-ex

/ Authors

C. Sturm, I. Boettcher, M. Debowski, A. Foerster, E. Grosse, P. Koczon, B. Kohlmeyer, F. Laue, M. Mang, L. Naumann

and 11 more authors

H. Oeschler, F. Puehlhofer, E. Schwab, P. Senger, Y. Shin, J. Speer, H. Stroebele, G. Surowka, F. Uhlig, A. Wagner, W. Walus

/ Abstract

The production of pions and kaons has been measured in Au+Au collisions at beam energies from 0.6 to 1.5 AGeV 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.