Excited states of hypernuclei (populated by low energetic separated K- beam)

The experimental investigation of hypernuclei up to now has been done using emulsions and bubble chambers and therefore, with only 2 exemptions, all existing knowledge concerns hypernuclear ground states. The investigation of excited states in general is only possible using counter techniques, but these experiments could not be performed due to the low intensity of available K/sup -/-beams. At CERN a low energetic separated K-beam has been built, at which 1000 K /sup -/-mesons per burst can be stopped in a target of 6g/cm/sup 2/ thickness. At this beam an experiment looking for gamma -transitions in excited hypernuclei has been performed. In order to eliminate background gamma -radiation arising from kappa /sup -/ annihilation and de-excitation of residual nuclei, only light targets were used, namely /sup 6/Li, /sup 7/Li, /sup 9/Be, /sup 12/C and /sup 16/O. Hypernuclear transitions were found in /sup 4//sub Lambda /H and /sup 4//sub Lambda /He and possible transitions in /sup 6/Li and /sup 7/Li. The scattering lengths for the singlet and triplet states of /sup 4 //sub Lambda /He are found to be a/sub s/=-2.3 fm and a/sub t/=-1.2 fm. (5 refs).