On the widths and binding energies of K− nuclear states and the role of K− multi-nucleon interactions

Abstract

We report on our recent self-consistent calculations of K− nuclear quasi-bound states using K− optical potentials derived from chirally motivated meson-baryon coupled channels models [1, 2]. The K− single-nucleon potentials were supplemented by a phenomenological K− multi-nucleon interaction term introduced to achieve good fits to K− atom data. We demonstrate a substantial impact of the K− multi-nucleon absorption on the widths of K− nuclear states. If such states ever exist in nuclear many-body systems, their widths are excessively large to allow observation.