Strange-Meson Spectroscopy at COMPASS

Abstract

COMPASS is a multi-purpose fixed-target experiment at CERN aimed at studying the structure and spectrum of hadrons. It has collected the so far world's largest data set on diffractive production of the $K^-\pi^-\pi^+$ decay, which in principle gives access to all kaon states. We performed an elaborate partial-wave analysis, using model-selection techniques to select the wave set based on a large systematically constructed pool of allowed partial waves. The partial-wave decomposition reveals signals in the mass region of well-known states, such as $K_1(1270)$ and $K_1(1400)$. In addition, we observe potential signals from excited states, such as $K_1(1650)$.