Kaon inelastic scattering and charge exchange on nuclei

We present the results of calculations of kaon inelastic and charge exchange reactions on nuclei, based on the microscopic particle-hole shell model. Both $K^{+}$ and $K^{-}$ inelastic scattering on ${}_{}{}^{12}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}$ are discussed for incident momenta $p_{\mathrm{lab}}=300\mathrm{} \mathrm{MeV}/c \mathrm{and} 800 \mathrm{MeV}/c$. In addition, we examine the charge exchange process ${}_{}{}^{30}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Si}$($K^{-}$,${\overline{K}}^0$)${}_{}{}^{30}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Al}$ at 300 MeV/c. We employ the distorted wave impulse approximation, using a transition operator constructed from free space $K^{\pm }$-nucleon amplitudes taken from analyses of two-body data. For the off-shell extrapolation of the two-body $t$ matrix, required in the many-body problem, we use a separable form factor obtained by solving the inverse scattering problem. The inelastic scattering results are found to be insensitive to the presence of the off-shell form factor. We find that normal parity $T=0\mathrm{} \mathrm{and} 1$ states dominate the nuclear response to both $K^{+}$ and $K^{-}$. At 300 MeV/c, some qualitative differences in the inelastic scattering predictions arise from choosing different elementary amplitudes from the literature. Thus kaon-nucleus scattering may shed some light on ambiguities in the low energy free space interactions of kaons. At 800 MeV/c, there is much less uncertainty in the two-body $t$ matrix, so we can focus our attention on nuclear structure aspects. We compare the kaons with pions, electrons, protons, and $\alpha$ in terms of their inelastic scattering and charge exchange properties. By emphasizing nuclear structure aspects such as the excitation of high spin states and the splitting of the $T_{<}$ and $T_{>}$ components of giant resonances, we show that kaons are very promising as a nuclear probe.