S = −1 dibaryon production with kaon beams

Production cross sections for strangeness S = −1 six-quark dibaryon states Ds,t in the (K−, π±) reactions on deuterium and 3He targets have been estimated. For the lowest-lying configurations (mass range 2100–2200 MeV in the MIT bag model) of quark structure Q4 − Q2, namely 1P1 and 3PJ, peak differential cross sections of order 1 μb/sr are predicted. The angular distributions are peaked in the region of 20° ⩽ θ ⩽ 30°, characteristic of angular momentum transfer ΔL = 1. We evaluate the prospects for detecting a dibaryon signal in the presence of background processes such as d(K−, π−) YN or 3He(K−, π+)Σ−pn