The relative contribution of the recoilless and quasifree A-production in the (K-, re-) strangeness exchange reaction in nuclei is estimated by using the nuclear Debye-Waller factor. The expressions for the A-oscillator spacing he) a needed for such an estimate are derived by means of procedures which lead to quite simple formulae for ho9 A as function of the mass number and are useful in obtaining improved results.
PACS: 21.80The strangeness exchange reaction (K-, r~-) on nuclei plays an important role in hypernuclear spectroscopy and has attracted much interest [1~l]. As is well known, under suitable kinematical conditions, "recoilless A-production" takes place. A neutron is transformed to a A particle occupying the same orbit as the neutron. In such a process, in which the kinematics resembles the kinematics of elastic scattering on nuclei, the momentum mismatch in the (K-, re-) reaction is not taken by the momentum of the A itself but by the momentum of the whole hypernucleus. On the contrary, in the so called "quasi-free A production", which may be compared to the inelastic scattering on nuclei, the A is produced in an orbit neighbouring that of the neutron.The study of the (K-, z~-) reactions on nuclei is based on the assumption that the transitions to hypernuclear states are one-step processes, that is the reaction occurs on a single nucleon without any additional interaction of either incoming K-or outgoing rewith the rest of the nucleus. Such an assumption is confirmed under suitable conditions [3,5].A very simple way has been proposed by Povh [6] for estimating the relative probability for the recoilless A production by exploiting the analogy of this process to the M6ssbauer effect (see [7a] and [7 b], Chaps. 2-4). This probability is given under certain assumptions by the nuclear Debye-Waller factor P(ni, hi) ~exp { -(2hi+ 1) h2qZ/(2ma he)A)},