From photons to dikaon - theoretical insights into $K^+K^-$ production in nuclear collisions

Abstract

The production of kaon pairs can proceed via photoproduction ($\gamma$-Pomeron interaction) or photon–photon fusion ($\gamma\gamma$). An important contribution to this process arises from the decays of scalar, tensor, and vector mesons. This study provides a comprehensive description of dikaon production at both the elementary ($\gamma\gamma \to \mbox{meson} \to K^+K^-$) and nuclear ($Pb Pb \to Pb Pb K^+K^-$) levels. The $\gamma\gamma$ fusion cross section is compared with experimental results from Belle, TPC/Two-Gamma, and ARGUS. A comparison with existing midrapidity measurements is presented, together with theoretical predictions performed for ultraperipheral Pb–Pb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5.02$ TeV.