Effect of an asymmetric nuclear medium on the valence quark structure of the kaons

Abstract

The role of asymmetric nuclear medium on the properties of kaon is investigated at zero and finite temperature employing a hybrid approach integrating the light cone quark model and the chiral SU(3) quark mean field model. The in-medium quark masses are calculated within the chiral SU(3) quark mean field model and are used as inputs to study the medium modifications in the kaon properties. In particular, we have analyzed the impact of baryonic density, isospin asymmetry, and temperature on the weak decay constant, distribution amplitudes, and parton distribution functions (PDFs) of valence quarks of kaon. The effects of isospin asymmetry on the kaon doublet K=(K+K0) and antikaon doublet K¯=(K−,K¯0) are also studied. In order to compare with future experiments, we have also evolved the in-medium PDFs of kaons to Q2=16 GeV2. As compared to the temperature and isospin asymmetry, change in baryonic density of the nuclear medium makes more significant changes to the distribution amplitudes and PDFs of kaons. Published by the American Physical Society 2025