Photoproduction of $\Lambda(1520)$ hyperons from nuclei near the threshold

Abstract

We present a theoretical investigation of $\Lambda(1520)$ attenuation in ${\gamma}A$ reactions near the threshold. It is performed in the framework of a collision model based on the nuclear spectral function. The model accounts for both primary photon-nucleon ${\gamma}N \to K\Lambda(1520)$ and secondary pion-nucleon ${\pi}N \to K\Lambda(1520)$ production processes. We calculate the target mass and momentum dependences of the forward $\Lambda(1520)$ hyperon production from nuclei at photon energy of 2 GeV as well as for two options for its in-medium width. We find that the considered dependences are markedly sensitive to this width. Our studies also demonstrate that the secondary channel ${\pi}N \to K\Lambda(1520)$ plays a substantial role in the intermediate momentum $\Lambda(1520)$ photoproduction on nuclei in the chosen kinematics and, hence, is to be taken into account in the analysis of $\Lambda(1520)$ hyperon photoproduction from nuclei with the aim to get information on its width in the matter.