Effective mass and decay of $\Theta^+$ in nuclear matter in quark-meson coupling model

Abstract

The in-medium mass of a $\thetaplus$, $\mtheta^*$, in cold symmetric nuclear matter is calculated by using the quark-meson coupling model. The $\Theta^+$ is treated as an MIT bag with the quark content $uudd\bar s$. Bag parameters for a free $\thetaplus$ are fixed to reproduce the observed mass of the $\thetaplus$. In doing so, we use three different values of the $s$-quark mass since the mass of the $s$-quark is not well known. As usual, the strengths of the $u$ and $d$ quark couplings to $\sigma$- and $\omega$-meson fields are determined to fit the nuclear saturation properties. However, the coupling constant $g_\sigma^s$ between the $s$-quark and the $\sigma$-meson cannot be fixed from the saturation properties, and thus we treat $g_\sigma^s$ as a free parameter and investigate how $\mtheta^*$ depends on $g_\sigma^s$. %$\mtheta^*$ is calculated up to 2.5 times the nuclear saturation density, %and we find that We find that $\mtheta^*$ depends significantly on the value of $g_\sigma^s$ but not on the mass of the $s$-quark. Chemical potentials of the $\Theta^+$ and the $K+N$ system are calculated to discuss the decay of a $\Theta^+$ in nuclear matter. We calculate the effective mass of a kaon in nuclear matter in two ways; using the optical potential of $K^-$ in matter and using quark model. By comparing the effective masses calculated from these two methods, we find the magnitude of the real part of the optical potential that is consistent with the usual quark model is about 100 MeV.