Production of the kappa meson in K −-p interactions

The recent work at Berkeley on π-p interactions has given evidence for the existence of an excited state in the Kπ system at ~725 MeV which has been called the κ meson. To search for this effect in k-p interactions, we have undertaken a systematic analysis of the reaction K- + p K-bar0 + π- + p over the range of momenta from 1.0 to 1.7 GeV/c. We find a significant enhancement centered at 723 ± 3 MeV, with a width less than 12 MeV. We cannot rule out the possibility that the observed width is due entirely to the experimental resolution. because of insufficient statistics we are unable to draw any conclusions as to the spin or parity of this resonance. Some theoretical implications of the κ are considered.