Hyperon production asymmetries in 500 GeV/c pion nucleus interactions

Abstract

We present a preliminary study from Fermilab experiment E791 of Lambda^0 / Lambda^0 bar, Xi^- / Xi^+ and Omega^- /Omega^+ production asymmetries from pi^- nucleus interactions at 500 Gev/c. The production asymmetries for these particles are studied as a function of x_F and pt^2. We observed an asymmetry in the target fragmentation region for Lambda^0's larger than that for Xi's, suggesting diquark effects. The asymmetry for Omega's is significatively smaller than for the other two hyperons consistent with the fact that Omega's do not share valence quarks with either the pion or the target particle. In the beam fragmentation region, the asymmetry tends to 0.1 for both Lambda^0's and Xi's. The asymmetries vs pt^2 are approximately constant for the three strange baryons under study.