Kaon-antikaon nuclear optical potentials and the kappa meson in the nuclear medium

Abstract

We study the properties of the kappa meson in the nuclear medium, starting from a chiral unitary model of S-wave, I=1/2 K-pi scattering, which describes the elastic K-pi phase shifts and generates a pole in the amplitude. Medium effects are considered by including pion and kaon selfenergies. We explore the changes in the kappa pole position and in the K-pi scattering amplitude at finite density, with two different models for the kaon selfenergy.

15 pages, 5 color figures; Sections II and III revised, some references added