Low-Energy $KN$ Interactions at a $\phi$-Factory

Abstract

The paper is the written version of a talk presented at the "VIIth Winter School of Hadronic Physics", held in Folgaria (Trento), Italy, February 10--15, 1992. We intend to illustrate in this lecture the possibilities opening up at machines planned for the nineties for low--energy kaon--nucleon interactions, keeping the focus on the theoretical problems they should help to solve. We shall deal here only with the $\phi$--factory DA$\Phi$NE$^1$ and consider, for brevity, interactions with light, gaseous targets, using gaseous $H_2$ as a benchmark for which to estimate the rates to be expected in a typical apparatus.