Study of excited Ξ baryons with the PANDA detector

The study of baryon excitation spectra provides insight into the inner structure of baryons. So far, most of the world-wide efforts have been directed towards N ∗ and Δ spectroscopy. Nevertheless, the study of the double and triple strange baryon spectrum provides independent information to the N ∗ and Δ spectra. The future antiproton experiment PANDA will provide direct access to final states containing a ΞΞ pair, for which production cross sections up to μ b are expected in ¯ pp reactions. With a luminosity of L = 10 31 cm − 2 s − 1 in the first phase of the experiment, the expected cross sections correspond to a production rate of ∼ 10 6 events / day. With a nearly 4 π detector acceptance, PANDA will thus be a hyperon factory. In this study, reactions of the type ¯ pp → Ξ + Ξ ∗− as well as ¯ pp → Ξ ∗+ Ξ − with various decay modes are investigated. For the exclusive reconstruction of the signal events a full decay tree fit is used, resulting in reconstruction efficiencies between 3 and 5%. This allows high statistics data to be collected within a few weeks of data taking.