Abstract
Strangeness production in heavy-ion reactions at incident energies at or below the threshold in NN collisions gives access to the characteristics of bulk nuclear matter and the properties of strange particles inside the hot and dense nuclear medium, like potentials and interaction cross sections. At these energies strangeness is produced in multi-step processes potentially via excitation of intermediate heavy resonances. The amount of experimental data on strangeness production at these energies has increased substantially during the last years due to the FOPI and the HADES experiments at SIS18 at GSI. Experimental data on K+ and K0 production support the assumption that particles with an s quark feel a moderate repulsive potential in the nuclear medium. The situation is not that clear in the case of K-. Here, spectra and flow of K- mesons is influenced by the contribution of ø mesons which are decaying into K+K- pairs with a branching ratio of 48.9 %. Depending on incident energy upto 30 % of all K- mesons measured in heavyion collisions are originating from ø-decays. Strangeness production yields - except the yield of Ξ- are described by thermal hadronisation models. Experimental data not only measured for heavy-ion collisions but also in proton induced reactions are described with sets of temperature T and baryon chemical potential μb which are close to a universal freeze-out curve which is fitting also experimental data obtained at lower baryon chemical potential. Despite the good description of most particle production yields, the question how this is achieved is still not settled and should be the focus of further investigations.