K+mesons as a probe of the nuclear interior

The sensitivity of intermediate energy ${\mathrm{K}}^{+}$ meson-induced elastic and inelastic differential cross section predictions to nuclear structure effects in the nuclear interior is examined for ${}_{}{}^{40}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Ca}$ and ${}_{}{}^{208}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Pb}$ targets. The observed sensitivity for ${\mathrm{K}}^{+}$ mesons is compared to that obtained with intermediate energy protons. In general, the ${\mathrm{K}}^{+}$ meson+nucleus elastic and inelastic scattering differential cross sections are an order of magnitude more sensitive to details of nucleon density distributions in the nuclear interior than corresponding proton-nucleus cross sections at comparable incident momentum. It is found that theoretical analyses of high quality ${\mathrm{K}}^{+}$ meson+nucleus data which extend to 3 ${\mathrm{fm}}^{\mathrm{-}1}$ momentum transfer could, in principle, provide new information regarding neutron ground state and transition density distributions in the interiors of large nuclei.