Inclusive production of charged kaons in p+p collisions at 158 GeV/c beam momentum and a new evaluation of the energy dependence of kaon production up to collider energies

New data on the production of charged kaons in p^(+)p interactions are presented. The data come from a sample of 4.8 million inelastic events obtained with the NA49 detector at the CERN SPS at 158 GeV/c beam momentum. The kaons are identified by energy loss in a large TPC tracking system. Inclusive invariant cross sections are obtained in intervals from 0 to 1.7 GeV/c in transverse momentum and from 0 to 0.5 in Feynman x. Using these data as a reference, a new evaluation of the energy dependence of kaon production, including neutral kaons, is conducted over a range from 3 GeV to p^(+)p^- collider energies.