Deeply bound levels in kaonic atoms

Using a microscopic antikaon-nucleus optical potential recently developed b y Ramos and Oset [10] from a chiral model, we calculate strong interaction energy shifts and widths for K- atoms. This purely theoretical potential gi ves an acceptable description of the measured data (chi(2)/num.data = 3.8), though it turns out to be less attractive than what can be inferred from t he existing kaon atomic data. We also use a modified potential, obtained by adding to the latter theoretical one a s-wave term which is fitted to know n experimental kaonic data (chi(2)/degree of freedom = 1.6), to predict dee ply bound K- atomic levels, not yet detected. This improved potential predi cts, in general, states even narrower than those recently reported by Fried man and Gal [9]. This reinforces the idea that these deeply atomic states c an be detected and resolved by using suitable nuclear reactions. Besides, w e also study K- and (K) over bar(0) nuclear bound states and compute bindin g energies and widths, for both species of antikaons, in C-12, Ca-40 and Pb -208. Despite of restricting our study only to potentials obtained from bes t fits to the known kaonic atom data, the dynamics of these nuclear bound s tates depends dramatically on the particular optical potential used. (C) 20 00 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.