A critical view on the deeply bound K^- pp system

Abstract

We briefly review the situation around the claimed deeply bound K^- states in different recent experiments and concentrate particularly on the state K^- pp advocated by the FINUDA collaboration in nuclear K^- absorption. We perform a theoretical simulation of the process and show that the peak in the Lambda p spectrum that was interpreted as a deep K^- pp bound state corresponds mostly to the process K^- p p --> Lambda p followed by final state interactions of the produced particles with the daughter nucleus.