Kaon differential flow in relativistic heavy-ion collisions - art. no. 034902

Using a relativistic transport model, we study the azimuthal momentum asymm etry of kaons with fixed transverse momentum, i.e., the differential flow, in heavy-ion collisions at beam momentum of 6 GeV/c per nucleon, available from the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). We find that in the absence of kaon potential the kaon di fferential flow is positive and increases with transverse momentum as that of nucleons. The repulsive kaon potential as predicted by theoretical model s, however, reduces the kaon differential flow, changing it to negative for kaons with low transverse momenta. Cancellation between the negative diffe rential flow at low momenta and the positive one at high momenta is then re sponsible for the experimentally observed nearly vanishing in-plane transve rse flow of kaons in heavy-ion experiments. [S0556-2813(99)02109-3].