EFFECTIVE KAON MASS IN DENSE BARYONIC MATTER - ROLE OF CORRELATIONS

We evaluate the effective kaon mass in dense nuclear matter. Pauli blo cking and nucleon-nucleon short-range correlations are incorporated. T he effects of short-range correlations are shown to be moderate and fi gure importantly only at densities larger than 2 times normal nuclear density. We discuss the relations between the present results and the results obtained in next-to-next-to-leading order chiral perturbation theory (O(Q(3)), where Q is the characteristic small energy-momentum s cale probed). We also discuss mean-field aspects, with some remarks on the relation between the short-range correlations and the four-Fermi contact terms in the chiral effective Lagrangian. (C) 1997 Elsevier Sc ience B.V.