We analyse the pp → pΛK + total cross section data which were recently measured by the COSY-11 collaboration at an energy 2 MeV above the reaction threshold. Our analysis suggests that the measurement of the invariant mass spectrum for the ΛK + at energies around 100 MeV above the threshold can provide a new constraint on the theoretical calculations for this reaction. In particular, the measurement can give a clue as to whether the reaction is dominated by resonance excitation or not. Thus, it should contribute to further understanding of the strangeness production mechanism. We show the invariant mass spectra for the ΛK + system in these optimal kinematic conditions calculated by several approaches, and demonstrate that our suggestion is experimentally feasible. : 13.75, 25.40, 14.20.G, 24.10 Keywords: Kaon production, Proton proton collision, Baryon resonance, One boson exchange, ΛK + invariant mass spectrum * Supported in part by the Forschungszentrum Jülich, and the Australian Research Council † sibirt@theorie.physik.uni-giessen.de ‡ ktsushim@physics.adelaide.edu.au § athomas@physics.adelaide.edu.au 0 Recently the COSY-11 Collaboration [1] measured the total cross section for the reaction, pp → pΛK + , at energy 2 MeV above the reaction threshold. The data were compared with the theoretical models which are presently available for this reaction [2,3,4,5]. Among them, both the predictions of Sibirtsev [2] and Li and Ko [3] could reproduce the experimental data at this energy well only with the inclusion of pion and kaon exchanges, but without the inclusion of any resonances which are observed to decay to the ΛK + channel. Moreover, it was found [2,3] that the dominant contribution to the pp → pΛK + reaction comes from the K-exchange mechanism. Alternatively, the study of Fäldt and Wilkin [5] which was made analogous to the pp → ppη reaction with a nonrelativistic treatment including the final state interaction, suggests that the total cross sections for the pp → pΛK + reactions at energies only slightly above threshold can possibly be explained by one pion-exchange followed by N ⋆ (1650) resonance excitation. Furthermore, they claim that these two ingredients alone are almost enough to describe the data. One of their motivations was to study whether the same type of meson exchange model could be capable of explaining simultaneously the near-threshold η and K production data -one pion exchange followed by N ⋆ (1650) resonance excitation for the present case.
PACSIn Ref.[4], within the resonance model, we performed the most detailed study of kaon production in proton-proton collisions with a full relativistic treatment. This included the mechanism adopted by Fäldt and Wilkin [5] as just one of the processes in evaluating the total cross sections. However, it has turned out that our calculation underestimates the data [1] at energy 2 MeV above the threshold -as shown in Fig. 1. It underestimates the experimental data from COSY by about a factor of 2, although it reproduces the existing data fairly wel...