$$K^0_S$$ meson production in inelastic p+p interactions at 31, 40 and 80 $$\text {Ge}\hspace{-1.00006pt}\text {V}\!/\!c$$ beam momentum measured by NA61$$/$$SHINE at the CERN SPS
Authors:   NA61/SHINE Collaboration, Abgrall N. , Adhikary H. , Adrich P. , Allison K. K. , Amin N. , Andronov E. V. , Antićić T. , Arsene I.-C. , Bajda M. , Balkova Y. , Baszczyk M. , Battaglia D. , Bazgir A. , Bhosale S. , Bielewicz M. , Blondel A. , Bogomilov M. , Bondar Y. , Bostan N. , Brandin A. , Bravar A. , Bryliński W. , Brzychczyk J. , Buryakov M. , Camino A. F. , Ćirković M. , Csanád M. , Cybowska J. , Czopowicz T. , Dalmazzone C. , Davis N. , Dmitriev A. , von Doetinchem P. , Dominik W. , Dorosz P. , Dumarchez J. , Engel R. , Feofilov G. A. , Fields L. , Fodor Z. , Friend M. , Gaździcki M. , Golosov O. , Golovatyuk V. , Golubeva M. , Grebieszkow K. , Guber F. , Haesler A. , Igolkin S. N. , Ilieva S. , Ivashkin A. , Izvestnyy A. , Kadija K. , Kargin N. , Karpushkin N. , Kashirin E. , Kiełbowicz M. , Kireyeu V. A. , Kitagawa H. , Kolesnikov R. , Kolev D. , Korzenev A. , Koshio Y. , Kovalenko V. N. , Kowalski S. , Kozłowski B. , Krasnoperov A. , Kucewicz W. , Kuchowicz M. , Kuich M. , Kurepin A. , László A. , Lewicki M. , Lykasov G. , Lyubushkin V. V. , Maćkowiak-Pawłowska M. , Majka Z. , Makhnev A. , Maksiak B. , Malakhov A. I. , Marcinek A. , Marino A. D. , Mathes H.-J. , Matulewicz T. , Matveev V. , Melkumov G. L. , Merzlaya A. , Mik Ł. , Morawiec A. , Morozov S. , Nagai Y. , Nakadaira T. , Naskręt M. , Nishimori S. , Ozvenchuk V. , Panova O. , Paolone V. , Petukhov O. , Pidhurskyi I. , Płaneta R. , Podlaski P. , Popov B. A. , Pórfy B. , Posiadała-Zezula M. , Prokhorova D. S. , Pszczel D. , Puławski S. , Puzović J. , Renfordt R. , Ren L. , Ortiz V. Z. Reyna , Röhrich D. , Rondio E. , Roth M. , Rozpłochowski Ł. , Rumberger B. T. , Rumyantsev M. , Rustamov A. , Rybczynski M. , Rybicki A. , Sakashita K. , Schmidt K. , Seryakov A. Yu. , Seyboth P. , Shah U. A. , Shiraishi Y. , Shukla A. , Słodkowski M. , Staszel P. , Stefanek G. , Stepaniak J. , Strikhanov M. , Ströbele H. , Šuša T. , Swiderski L. , Szewiński J. , Szukiewicz R. , Taranenko A. , Tefelska A. , Tefelski D. , Tereshchenko V. , Toia A. , Tsenov R. , Turko L. , Tveter T. S. , Unger M. , Urbaniak M. , Valiev F. F. , Veberič D. , Vechernin V. V. , Volkov V. , Wickremasinghe A. , Wójcik K. , Wyszyński O. , Zaitsev A. , Zimmerman E. D. , Zviagina A. , Zwaska R. 
Published: August 2024

The yields of $$K^0_S$$

K
S
0

mesons have been measured in inelastic p+p interactions at incident projectile momenta of 31, 40 and 80 $$\text {Ge}\hspace{-1.00006pt}\text {V}\!/\!c$$

Ge

V

/

c

($$\sqrt{s_{NN}}=7.7, 8.8$$

s

NN

=
7.7
,
8.8

and 12.3 $$\text {Ge}\hspace{-1.00006pt}\text {V}$$

Ge

V

, respectively). The data were recorded by the NA61$$/$$
/
SHINE spectrometer at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron and the $$K^0_S$$

K
S
0

mesons identified via their decays into $$\pi ^{+} \pi ^{-}$$

π
+

π
-

pairs. Double-differential distributions are presented as function of transverse momentum and rapidity. The mean multiplicities of $$K^0_S$$

K
S
0

mesons were determined to be $$(5.95 \pm 0.19 (stat) \pm 0.30 (sys)) \times 10^{-2}$$

(
5.95
±
0.19

(
s
t
a
t
)

±
0.30

(
s
y
s
)

)

×

10

-
2

at 31 $$\text {Ge}\hspace{-1.00006pt}\text {V}\!/\!c$$

Ge

V

/

c

, $$(7.61 \pm 0.13 (stat) \pm 0.43 (sys)) \times 10^{-2}$$

(
7.61
±
0.13

(
s
t
a
t
)

±
0.43

(
s
y
s
)

)

×

10

-
2

at 40 $$\text {Ge}\hspace{-1.00006pt}\text {V}\!/\!c$$

Ge

V

/

c

and $$(11.58 \pm 0.12 (stat) \pm 0.55 (sys)) \times 10^{-2}$$

(
11.58
±
0.12

(
s
t
a
t
)

±
0.55

(
s
y
s
)

)

×

10

-
2

at 80 $$\text {Ge}\hspace{-1.00006pt}\text {V}\!/\!c$$

Ge

V

/

c

. The results on $$K^{0}_{S}$$

K
S
0

production are compared with the production of charged kaons in corresponding reactions and with model calculations (Epos1.99, SMASH 2.0 and PHSD) as well as with published data from other experiments.