We present the N_f=2+1 clover fermion lattice QCD calculation of the nucleon strangeness form factors. We evaluate disconnected insertions using the Z(4) stochastic method, along with unbiased subtractions from the hopping parameter expansion. We find that increasing the number of nucleon sources for each configuration improves the signal significantly. We obtain G_M^s(0) = -0.017(25)(07), where the first error is statistical, and the second is the uncertainties in Q^2 and chiral extrapolations. This is consistent with experimental values, and has an order of magnitude smaller error.
We revisit the classical relation between the strangeness content of the nucleon, the pion-nucleon sigma term and the $SU(3)_F$ breaking of the baryon masses in the context of Lorentz covariant chiral perturbation theory with explicit decuplet-baryon resonance fields. We find that a value of the pion-nucleon sigma term of $\sim$60 MeV is not necessarily at odds with a small strangeness content of the nucleon, in line with the fulfillment of the OZI rule. Moreover, this value is indeed favored by our next-to-leading order calculation. We compare our results with earlier ones and discuss the con…
I review recent studies of strangeness content in the nucleon pertaining to the flavor-singlet $g_A^0$, the $\bar{s}s$ matrix element and the strangeness electric and magnetic form factors $G_E^s(q^2)$ and $G_M^s(q^2)$, based on lattice QCD calculations. I shall also discuss the relevance of incorporating the strangeness content in nuclei in regard to strange baryon-antibaryon productions from proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at SPS and RHIC energies.
We study the possibility to constrain the hidden strangeness content of the nucleon by means of the polarization observables in phi meson electroproduction. We consider the OZI evading direct knockout mechanism that arises from the non-vanishing s\bar{s} sea quark admixture of the nucleon as well as the background of the dominant diffractive and the one-boson-exchange processes. Large sensitivity on the nucleon strangeness are found in several beam-target and beam-recoil double polarization observables. The small \sqrt{s} and W region, which is accesible at some of the current high-energy elec…
Effective quark magnetic moments are extracted from experimental measurements as a function of the strangeness magnetic moment of the nucleon. Assumptions made in even the most general quark model analyses are ruled out by this investigation. Ab initio QCD calculations demand a non-trivial role for strange quarks in the nucleon. The effective moments from QCD calculations are reproduced for a strangeness magnetic moment contribution to the proton of 0.11 $μ_N$, which corresponds to $F_2^s(0) = -0.33\ μ_N$.
The calculation of the nucleon strangeness form factors from N_f=2+1 clover fermion lattice QCD is presented. Disconnected insertions are evaluated using the Z(4) stochastic method, along with unbiased subtractions from the hopping parameter expansion. We find that increasing the number of nucleon sources for each configuration improves the signal significantly. We obtain G_M^s(0) = -0.017(25)(07), which is consistent with experimental values, and has an order of magnitude smaller error. Preliminary results for the strangeness contribution to the second moment of the parton distribution functi…
The polarization observables in phi photoproduction are suggested for probing the nucleon strangeness. Based on models for phi photoproduction, some double polarization observables are shown to be very sensitive to the strangeness content of the proton because of the different spin structures of the amplitudes associated with different mechanisms.
We study the three nucleon force in the triton channel using dynamical clover fermion lattice QCD. The Nambu-Bethe-Salpeter wave function is utilized to obtain the potentials among three nucleons. Since the straightforward calculation is prohibitively expensive, two different frameworks are developed to meet the challenge. In the first method, we study the effective two nucleon potentials in the three nucleon system, where the differences between the effective two nucleon potentials and the genuine two nucleon potentials correspond to the three nucleon system effect, part of which is originate…
We investigate the associated strangeness Lambda K+ and Sigma0 K+ productions in proton-proton collisions within an effective Lagrangian model. The initial interaction between the two nucleons is modeled by the exchange of pi, rho, omega, and sigma mesons and the strangeness production proceeds via excitations of N*(1650), N*(1710), and N*(1720) baryonic resonances. The parameters of the model at the nucleon-nucleon-meson vertices are determined by fitting the elastic nucleon-nucleon scattering with an effective interaction based on the exchange of these four mesons, while those at the resonan…
Dense compact objects like neutron stars or black holes have always been one of Gerry Brown's favorite research topics. This is closely related to the effects of strangeness in nuclear physics. Here, we review the chiral Effective Field Theory approach to interactions involving nucleons and hyperons, the possible existence of strange dibaryons, the fate of hyperons in nuclear matter and the present status of three-body forces involving hyperons and nucleons.
Dispersion relations provide a powerful tool to describe the low-energy structure of hadrons. We review the status of the strange vector form factors of the nucleon in dispersion theory. We also comment on open questions and the relation to chiral perturbation theory.
We present results on the scalar strangeness and charm contents of the nucleon and of the disconnected contributions to the nucleon spin. These are obtained on two flavour non-perturbatively improved Sheikholeslami-Wilson configurations at a pseudoscalar mass of 290 MeV. We quote f_{T_s} = m_s<N|ss|N>/m_N< = 0.070(22) as our preliminary value for the strange quark fraction of the nucleon mass and a modified minimal subtraction scheme value Delta s = -0.015(10), with as yet unknown systematics, for the strangeness contribution to the spin.
We investigate $ϕ$ meson electroproduction to probe the hidden strangeness content of the nucleon. We found that even a small amount of the $s\bar{s}$ admixture in the nucleon wavefunction can lead to a significant change in several double polarization asymmetries in $ϕ$ electroproduction, which can be tested experimentally at current electron facilities.
The polarization observables in phi meson photoproduction is studied to probe the strangeness content of the nucleon. In addition to the dominant diffractive production and the one-pion-exchange process, we take into account the direct knockout mechanism that arises from the possible hidden strangeness content of the nucleon. We find that some double polarization observables are very sensitive to the strangeness content of the proton because of the different spin structures of the amplitudes associated with different mechanisms. This suggests that such measurements could be very useful in prob…
The nucleon strange and anti-strange distribution asymmetry is an important issue in the study of the nucleon structure. In this work, we show that the heavy quark recombination processes from a perturbative QCD picture can give a sizable influence on the measurement of the nucleon strangeness asymmetry from charged-current charm production processes, such as the CCFR and NuTeV dimuon measurements. When the influence of heavy quark recombination is considered, a positive effective $δS^-_{\mathrm{HR}}$ should be added to the initially extracted strangeness asymmetry $S^-\equiv\int dx[s(x)-\bar …
Pronounced effects due to final state hyperon-nucleon interaction are predicted in strangeness photoproduction reaction on the deuteron. Use is made of the covariant reaction formalism and the P- matrix approach to the hyperon-nucleon interaction.
We review the state of our knowledge concerning the contribution of strange quarks to various nucleon properties. In the case of the electric and magnetic form factors, the level of agreement between theory and experiment is very satisfactory and gives us considerable confidence in our capacity to make reliable calculations within non-perturbative QCD. In view of the importance of the scalar form factors to the detection of dark matter candidates such as neutralinos, we place a particular emphasis on the determination of the pi-N and strange quark sigma commutators.
The scalar strangeness content of the nucleon, characterized by the so-called strangeness-nucleon sigma term, is of fundamental importance in understanding its sea-quark flavor structure. We report a determination of the octet baryon sigma terms via the Feynman-Hellmann theorem by analyzing the latest high-statistics $n_f=2+1$ lattice QCD simulations with covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory up to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order. In particular, we predict $σ_{πN}=55(1)(4)$ MeV and $σ_{sN}=27(27)(4)$ MeV, while the first error is statistical and the second systematic due to differe…
The nucleon's strange-quark vector current form factors are studied from the perspective of chiral symmetry. It is argued that chiral perturbation theory cannot yield a prediction for the strangeness radius and magnetic moment. Arrival at definite predictions requires the introduction of additional, model-dependent assumptions which go beyond the framework of chiral perturbation theory. A variety of such model predictions is surveyed, and the credibility of each is evaluated. The most plausible prediction appears in a model where the unknown chiral counterterms are identified with $t$-channel …
A crucial input for recent meson hyperon cloud model estimates of the nucleon matrix element of the strangeness current are the nucleon-hyperon-K* (NYK*) form factors which regularize some of the arising loops. Prompted by new and forthcoming information on these form factors from hyperon-nucleon potential models, we analyze the dependence of the loop model results for the strange-quark observables on the NYK* form factors and couplings. We find, in particular, that the now generally favored soft N-Lambda-K* form factors can reduce the magnitude of the K* contributions in such models by more t…
We calculate the instanton contribution to the proton strangeness in the MIT bag enriched by the presence of a dilute instanton liquid. The evaluation is based on expressing the nucleon matrix elements of bilinear strange quark operators in terms of a model valence nucleon state and interactions producing quark-antiquark fluctuations on top of that valence state. Our method combines the usage of the evolution operator containing a strangeness source, and the Feynman-Hellmann theorem. It enables one to evaluate the strangeness in different Lorentz channels in, essentially, the same way. Only th…
By combining the constraints of charge symmetry with new chiral extrapolation techniques and recent low mass lattice QCD simulations of the individual quark contributions to the magnetic moments of the nucleon octet, we obtain a precise determination of the strange magnetic moment of the proton. The result, namely G_M^s = -0.046 +/- 0.019 mu_N, is consistent with the latest experimental measurements but an order of magnitude more precise. This poses a tremendous challenge for future experiments.
We study contributions to the nucleon strange quark vector current form factors from intermediate states containing K^* mesons. We show how these contributions may be comparable in magnitude to those made by K mesons, using methods complementary to those employed in quark model studies. We also analyze the degree of theoretical uncertainty associated with K^* contributions.
On top of its valence quarks, the full nucleon ground state may contain appreciable admixture of s-\bar{s} pairs already at small momentum transfers. This paper discusses strangeness in the mean-field type of nucleon models, and exemplifies this by explicit calculations in the MIT bag model enriched by the presence of instantons. We calculate the instanton contribution to the strangeness in the MIT bag (on top of the standard contribution to strangeness found in that model). Although we do it in an essentially perturbative way, we present a detailed derivation of the formula expressing nucleon…
We suggest that breaking of SU(3) flavor symmetry mainly resides in the baryon wave--functions while the charge operators have no (or only small) explicit symmetry breaking components. We utilize the collective coordinate approach to chiral soliton models to support this picture. In particular we compute the $g_A/g_V$ ratios for hyperon beta--decay and the strangeness contribution to the nucleon axial current matrix elements and analyze their variation with increasing flavor symmetry breaking.
Strange matrix elements of the nucleon are calculated within the light-cone formulation of the meson cloud model. The $Q^2$ dependence of the strange vector and axial vector form factors is computed, and the strangeness radius and magnetic moment extracted, both of which are found to be very small and slightly negative. Within the same framework one finds a small but non-zero excess of the antistrange distribution over the strange at large $x$. Kaon loops are unlikely, however, to be the source of a large polarized strange quark distribution.
The calculation of the strangeness and charmness of the nucleon is presented with overlap fermion action on 2+1 flavor domain wall fermion configurations. We adopt stochastic grid sources and the low mode substitution technique to improve the signals of nucleon correlation functions and the loops. The calculation is done on a $24^3\times 64$ lattice with $m_l=0.005$, $m_h=0.04$, and $a^{-1}=1.73\,{\rm GeV}$. We find $ f_{T_{s}} = 0.048(15)$ and $f_{T_{c}} = 0.029(43)$.
We discuss two descriptions of the nucleon's strange vector form factors in the framework of vector meson dominance. The first, an updated and extended version of Jaffe's dispersion analysis, approximates the spectral functions of the form factors as a sum of vector meson poles, whereas the second combines vector meson dominance in the $ω$ and $ϕ$ meson sector with an intrinsic strangeness distribution from a kaon cloud. (Plenary talk given at the International School for Nuclear Physics, 17th Course: Quarks and Hadrons in Nuclei, Erice, Sicily, Sept 19-27, 1995.)
We summarize three alternative extensions of the quark-valence picture of nucleon strangeness and spin, including (1) gluon spin in QCD, (2) Bjorken sum rule and QCD, (3) D--E meson mixing and tadpole leakage. All three approaches suggest that ~40% of the nucleon's spin (as well as its momentum) resides with quarks, but that less than 6% is due to strange quarks.
Hyperon-nucleon interactions serve as basic inputs to studies of hypernuclear physics and dense (neutron) stars. Unfortunately, a precise understanding of these important quantities have lagged far behind that of the nucleon-nucleon interaction due to lack of high precision experimental data. Historically, hyperon-nucleon interactions are either formulated in quark models or meson exchange models. In recent years, lattice QCD simulations and chiral effective field theory approaches start to offer new insights from first principles. In the present work, we contrast the state of art lattice QCD …
We study the nucleon matrix elements of the quark scalar-density operator using maximally twisted mass fermions with dynamical light ($u$,$d$), strange and charm degrees of freedom. We demonstrate that in this setup the nucleon matrix elements of the light and strange quark densities can be obtained with good statistical accuracy, while for the charm quark counterpart only a bound can be provided. The present calculation which is performed at only one value of the lattice spacing and pion mass serves as a benchmark for a future more systematic computation of the scalar quark content of the nuc…
Several parameters characterizing the strangeness content of the nucleon have been calculated in the chiral constituent quark model with configuration mixing (\chiCQM_{config}) which is known to provide a satisfactory explanation of the ``proton spin problem'' and related issues. In particular, we have calculated the strange spin polarization Δs, the strangeness contribution to the weak axial vector couplings Δ_8 etc., strangeness contribution to the magnetic moments μ(p)^s etc., the strange quark flavor fraction f_s, the strangeness dependent quark ratios \frac{2 \bar s}{u+d} and \frac{2 \bar…
Determining the nonperturbative $s\bar{s}$ content of the nucleon has attracted considerable interest and been the subject of numerous experimental searches. These measurements used a variety of reactions and place important limits on the vector form factors observed in parity-violating (PV) elastic scattering and the parton distributions determined by deep inelastic scattering (DIS). In spite of this progress, attempts to relate information obtained from elastic and DIS experiments have been sparse. To ameliorate this situation, we develop an interpolating model using light-front wave functio…
The properties of the nucleons in nuclear medium have been investigated in the context of the flux tube model incorporating strangeness $(s\bar{s})$ contribution to proton structure in conformity with the experimental indication. Proton is described as a pentaquark system with strange quark contribution whereas neutron is described in three quark configuration. The Quasi particle model of diquark is used to describe the structures of the nucleons. Modifications of the properties like swelling, mass, incompressibility, ratio of the structure functions ($\frac{F_{2}^{n}(x)}{F_{2}^{p}(x)}$), Gott…
We present a non-perturbative calculation of the strangeness of the nucleon $y_N$ within the framework of lattice QCD. This observable is known to be an important cornerstone to interpret results from direct dark matter detection experiments. We perform a lattice computation for $y_N$ with an analysis of systematic effects originating from discretization, finite size, chiral extrapolation and excited state effects leading to the value of $y_N= 0.173(50)$. The rather large uncertainty of this value of $y_N$ is dominated by systematic uncertainties which we were able to quantify in this work.
The strange-quark vector current form factors of the nucleon are analyzed within the framework of dispersion relations. Particular attention is paid to contributions made by $K\bar{K}$ intermediate states to the form factor spectral functions. It is shown that, when the $K\bar{K}\to N\bar{N}$ amplitude is evaluated in the Born approximation, the $K\bar{K}$ contributions are identical to those arising from a one-loop calculation and entail a serious violation of unitarity. The mean square strangeness radius and magnetic moment are evaluated by imposing unitarity bounds on the kaon-nucleon parti…
The chiral constituent quark model ($χ$CQM) has been extended to calculate the flavor structure of the nucleon through the meson-nucleon sigma terms which have large contributions from the quark sea and are greatly affected by chiral symmetry breaking and SU(3) symmetry breaking. The hidden strangeness component in the nucleon has also been investigated and its significant contribution is found to be consistent with the recent available experimental observations.
We estimate the 3 πcontinuum contribution to the nucleon strange quark vector current form factors, including the effect of a 3 π<----> ρπresonance. We find the magnitude of this OZI-violating contribution to be comparable to that of typical OZI-allowed contributions. We also study the isoscalar electromagnetic form factors, and find that the presence of a ρπresonance in the multi-pion continuum may generate an appreciable contribution.
The outcome of the SAMPLE Experiment suggests that the strange-quark contribution to the nucleon magnetic moment, G_M^s(0), may be greater than zero. This result is very difficult to reconcile with expectations based on the successful baryon magnetic-moment phenomenology of the constituent quark model. We show that careful consideration of chiral symmetry reveals some rather unexpected properties of QCD. In particular, it is found that the valence u-quark contribution to the magnetic moment of the neutron can differ by more than 50% from its contribution to the Xi^0 magnetic moment. This hithe…
Motivated by the successes of covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory in one-baryon systems and in heavy-light systems, we study relevance of relativistic effects in hyperon-nucleon interactions with strangeness $S=-1$. In this exploratory work, we follow the covariant framework developed by Epelbaum and Gegelia to calculate the $YN$ scattering amplitude at leading order. By fitting the five low-energy constants to the experimental data, we find that the cutoff dependence is mitigated, compared with the heavy-baryon approach. Nevertheless, the description of the experimental data remains q…
The leading non-zero electric moment of the nucleon strange-quark vector current is the mean square strangeness radius, $<r_s^2>$. We evaluate the lightest OZI-allowed contribution to $<r_s^2>$, arising from the kaon cloud, using dispersion relations. Drawing upon unitarity constraints as well as $K^{+}N$ scattering and $e^+e^-\to K\bar{K}$ cross section data, we find the structure of this contribution differs significantly from that suggested by a variety of QCD-inspired model calculations. In particular, we find evidence for a strong $ϕ$-meson resonance which may enhance the scale of kaon cl…
The possibility to determine the axial strange form factor of the nucleon from elastic neutrino-nucleon scattering experiments is studied. The existing experimental information is shortly mentioned and several observables which could be measured in the near future at new neutrino facilities are discussed.
A large violation of the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka rule was discovered in the annihilation of stopped antiprotons. The explanation of these experimental data is discussed in the framework of the model assumed that the nucleon strange sea quarks are polarized.
Deuteron electrodisintegration is described in a relativistic PWIA framework. The reduction to the factorized PWIA, and the effect thereof on the observables accessible in parity-violating scattering, is discussed. The extent to which such relativistic effects may affect the extraction of strangeness nucleon form factors from measurements of the PV asymmetry, is investigated.
We report on a lattice QCD calculation of the strangeness magnetic moment of the nucleon. Our result is $G_M^s(0) = - 0.36 \pm 0.20 $. The sea contributions from the u and d quarks are about 80% larger. However, they cancel to a large extent due to their electric charges, resulting in a smaller net sea contribution of $ - 0.097 \pm 0.037 μ_N$ to the nucleon magnetic moment. As far as the neutron to proton magnetic moment ratio is concerned, this sea contribution tends to cancel out the cloud-quark effect from the Z-graphs and result in a ratio of $ -0.68 \pm 0.04$ which is close to the SU(6) r…
We present a calculation of the strangeness and charmness contents <N|\bar{s}s|N> and <N|\bar{c}c|N> of the nucleon from dynamical lattice QCD with 2+1 flavors. The calculation is performed with overlap valence quarks on 2+1-flavor domain-wall fermion gauge configurations. The configurations are generated by the RBC collaboration on a 24^3*64 lattice with sea quark mass am_l=0.005, am_s=0.04, and inverse lattice spacing a^{-1}=1.73GeV. Both actions have chiral symmetry which is essential in avoiding contamination due to the operator mixing with other flavors. Nucleon propagator and the quark l…
After the EMC and subsequent experiments at CERN, SLAC and DESY on the deep inelastic scattering of polarized leptons on polarized nucleons, it is now established that the Q^2=0 value of the axial strange form factor of the nucleon, a quantity which is connected with the spin of the proton and is quite relevant from the theoretical point of view, is relatively large. In this review we consider different methods and observables that allow to obtain information on the strange axial and vector form factors of the nucleon at different values of Q^2. These methods are based on the investigation of …
The strangeness contribution to the nucleon magnetic moment is calculated at the one-loop level in a relativistic SU(3) chiral potential model and is found to be {\em positive}, that is, with an {\em opposite} sign to the nucleon strangeness polarization. It is the ``Z'' diagram that violates the usual relation between spin and magnetic moment. The positive value is due to the contribution from the intermediate excited quark states, while the intermediate ground state gives a negative contribution. Our numerical results agree quite well with the new measurement of the SAMPLE Collaboration.
In view of the numerous experimental results recently released, we provide in this letter an update on the performance of our simple Regge model for strangeness electroproduction on the nucleon. Without refitting any parameters, a decent description of all measured observables and channels is achieved. We also give predictions for spin transfer observables, recently measured at Jefferson Lab which have high sensitivity to discriminate between different theoretical approaches.
We consider a simple model for the strangeness radius of the nucleon. The model is based on vector meson dominance (VMD) and $ω- ϕ$ mixing in addition to a kaon cloud contribution. We find that the VMD contribution is similar in magnitude and of the same sign as the kaon contribution to the Sachs strangeness radius and is significantly larger than the kaon contribution to the Dirac radius. Two figures (not included) can be obtained through the authors (marina@quark.umd.edu).
We update Jaffe's estimate of the strange isoscalar radius and magnetic moment of the nucleon. We make use of a recent dispersion--theoretical fit to the nucleon electromagnetic form factors and an improved description of symmetry breaking in the vector nonet. We find $μ_s = -0.24 \pm 0.03$~n.m. and $r_s^2 = 0.21 \pm 0.03$~fm$^2$. The strange formfactor $F_2^s (t)$ follows a dipole with a cut--off mass of 1.46~GeV, $F_2^s (t)= μ_s (1-t/2.14 \, {\rm GeV}^2 )^{-2}$. These numbers should be considered as upper limits on the strange vector current matrix--elements in the nucleon.
Most of model considerations of the hidden nucleon strangeness, as well as some preliminary experimental evidence, led to the expectations of relatively sizeable strange vector form factors of the proton. For example, it seemed that the contribution of the fluctuating strange quark-antiquark pairs accounts for as much as one tenth of the proton's magnetic moment. By the same token, baryon models which failed to produce the "vector strangeness" of the nucleon seemed disfavored. Recently, however, more accurate measurements and more sophisticated data analysis, as well as lattice simulations, re…
We have applied the Meson Cloud Model (MCM) to calculate the charm and strange antiquark distribution in the nucleon. The resulting distribution, in the case of charm, is very similar to the intrinsic charm momentum distribution in the nucleon. This seems to corroborate the hypothesis that the intrinsic charm is in the cloud and, at the same time, explains why other calculations with the MCM involving strange quark distributions fail in reproducing the low x region data. From the intrinsic strange distribution in the nucleon we have extracted the strangeness radius of the nucleon, which is in …
We determine the quark contributions to the nucleon spin Delta s, Delta u and Delta d as well as their contributions to the nucleon mass, the sigma-terms. This is done by computing both, the quark line connected and disconnected contributions to the respective matrix elements, using the non-perturbatively improved Sheikholeslami-Wohlert Wilson Fermionic action. We simulate n_F=2 mass degenerate sea quarks with a pion mass of about 285 MeV and a lattice spacing a = 0.073 fm. The renormalization of the matrix elements involves mixing between contributions from different quark flavours. The pion-…
Experimentally, the production of oppositely charged dimuon events by neutrino and anti-neutrino deep inelastic scattering (DIS) is used to determine the strangeness asymmetry inside a nucleon. Here we point out that the direct production of $D$-meson in DIS may make substantial influence to the measurement of nucleon strange distributions. The direct $D$-meson production is via the heavy quark recombination (HQR) and via the light quark fragmentation from perturbative QCD (LQF-P). To see the influence precisely, we compute the direct $D$-meson productions via HQR and LQF-P quantitatively and …
If instantons are introduced into the MIT bag model in such a way that bag radii are allowed to vary, the MIT bag interior can accommodate instanton density which is by an order of magnitude larger than in the case when the radii are fixed (although it is still significantly smaller than in the nonperturbative QCD vacuum). The instanton contribution to baryon mass shifts is also correspondingly larger. The instanton-induced part of the scalar strangeness of the nucleon MIT bag is an order of magnitude larger than found previously, within the linearized approximation. The decrease of the model …
The scalar form factor of the nucleon and related physical quantities are investigated in the framework of the semibosonized SU(3) Nambu-Jona-Lasinio soliton model. We take into account the rotational $1/N_c$ corrections and linear $m_s$ corrections. The strangeness content of the nucleon in the scalar form factor is discussed in detail. In particular, it is found that the $m_s$ corrections play an essential role of reducing the $\langle N | \bar{s} s | N \rangle$ arising from the leading order and rotational $1/N_c$ contributions. We obtain the $σ_{πN} (0)=40.80\;\mbox{MeV}$, $Δσ= σ_{πN} (2m^…
Data on mean numbers of $Λ$, $\barΛ$, K's and on the total number $<s\bar s>$ of pairs of strange valence quarks in final state hadrons in hadronic and nuclear collisions at CERN- SPS energies are studied as a function of the mean number $<n_{coll}>$ of nucleon- nucleon collisions. Results give indications of an almost linear dependence over most of the region of $<n_{coll}>$. This in turn points out to strangeness being produced mostly in the central rapidity region of nucleon- nucleon collisions by a mechanism similar to a hard or semi- hard process. The available data are extrapolated to Pb…
