Origin of energy shift in kaonic atom and kaon-nucleus interaction

Abstract

The $K^-$-nucleus optical potential is revisited to investigate its global feature phenomenologically. It is a puzzle that the energy shift is found to be repulsive in all of the observed kaonic atom, although the $K^-N$ interaction is known to be so attractive as to form the $Λ(1405)$ resonance. To solve this puzzle, we examine the $K^-$ optical potential in the linear density approximation and determine the potential parameters of each kaonic atom so as to reproduce the observed energy shift and absorption width. We find two types of the potentials. One potential has a so large real part as to provide nuclear states with the same quantum number to the atomic state in the last orbit. The level repulsion between the atomic state and the nuclear states takes place due to their mixing, and it makes the atomic state shifted repulsively. The other type of the potential has a large imaginary part and the imaginary part works repulsively for atomic states. We find that only the latter solution reproduce a wide of the observed data, and thus is realized as a $K^-$-nucleus potential for kaonic atom. In the linear nuclear density optical potential, the picture that the repulsive shifts in the atomic states stem from the existence of the nuclear states does not globally stand up. This implies that the $K^-$-nucleus optical potential should have a large imaginary part. We examine some nonlinear density effects and find that the conclusion does not change. We also confirm that the conventionally known optical potentials are categorized into the latter type of the potential.