LAMBDA-HYPERNUCLEUS FORMATION IN PROTON-NUCLEUS REACTIONS

We study the production of Lambda hyperons in p + A reactions within t he BUU transport approach including elastic Lambda - N rescattering an d extract the Lambda sticking probabilities and hypernucleus formation cross sections as a function of bombarding energy and target mass. At 1.5 GeV about 25% of the Lambda hyperons are found to be bound in cas e of heavy nuclei like U-238 leading to large cross sections for Lambd a-hypernuclei. The respective hypernuclei show broad distributions in excitation energy, momentum and angular momentum. The decay of the Lam bda hyperon in case of heavy targets is found to be almost entirely du e to nonmesonic decay channels, i.e. Lambda N --> NN processes.