Probing the nuclear equation of state by $K^+$ production in heavy ion collisions

C. Fuchs, Amand Faessler, E. Zabrodin, Yu-Ming Zheng

Published 2000-11-30, updated 2001-01-17Version 2

The dependence of $K^+$ production on the nuclear equation of state is investigated in heavy ion collisions. An increase of the excitation function of $K^+$ multiplicities obtained in heavy ($Au+Au$) over light ($C+C$) systems when going far below threshold which has been observed by the KaoS Collaboration strongly favours a soft equation of state. This observation holds despite of the influence of an in-medium kaon potential predicted by effective chiral models which is necessary to reproduce the experimental $K^+$ yields.