Study of hyperon-nucleon interactions at BESIII

Abstract

Hyperon-nucleon interactions are important to understand quantum chromodynamics and so-called “hyperon puzzle” of neutron star, but limited by the availability and short-lifetime of hyperon beams, the progress of relevant research is very slow. A novel method is used to study hyperon-nucleon interactions based on hyperons produced in the decays of 10 billion J/ψ events collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII storage ring, and the target material is beam pipe. The reactions Ξ0n → Ξ− p and ΛN → Σ+X have been observed and measured at BESIII. This is the first study of hyperon-nucleon interactions in electron-positron collisions and opens up a new direction for such research.