Neutral strange particle production in neutrino and antineutrino charged-current interactions on neon

A study has been made of neutral strange particle production in [nu][sub [mu]][ital Ne] and [bar [nu]][sub [mu]][ital Ne] charged-current interactions at a higher energy than any previous study. The experiment was done at the Fermilab Tevatron using the 15-ft. bubble chamber, and the data sample consists of 814(154) observed neutral strange particles from 6263(1115) [nu]([bar [nu]]) charged-current events. For the [nu] beam (average event energy [l angle][ital E][sub [nu]][r angle]=150 GeV), the average multiplicities per charged-current event have been measured to be 0.408[plus minus]0.048 for [ital K][sup 0], 0.127[plus minus]0.014 for [Lambda], and 0.015[plus minus]0.005 for [bar [Lambda]], which are significantly greater than for lower-energy experiments. The dependence of rates on kinematical variables has been measured, and shows that both [ital K][sup 0] and [Lambda] production increase strongly with [ital E][sub [nu]], [ital W][sup 2], [ital Q][sup 2], and [ital y][sub [ital B]]. Compared to lower-energy experiments, single-particle distributions indicate that there is much more [ital K][sup 0] production for [ital x][sub [ital F]][gt][minus]0.2, and the enhanced [Lambda] production spans most of the kinematic region. [bar [Lambda]] production is mostly in the region [vert bar][ital x][sub [ital F]][vert bar][lt]0.3. The Lund model is shown to be in qualitative agreement with the data, but does not reproduce single-particle distributions in detail. For [ital x][sub [ital F]][gt][minus]0.2 there is a significant excess of [Lambda] production over the model's prediction. The [Lambda] hyperons are found to be polarized in the production plane.