Few-body hypernuclear constraints

Since the discovery of the first hyperfragment in a balloon flown emulsion stack some two score years ago, physicists have worked to understand how the addition of the strangeness degree of freedom alters the picture of nuclei and the baryon-baryon force. Because the Λ and Σ masses differ markedly from that of the proton and neutron, SU (3) symmetry is broken. How it is broken is a question of importance to the fundamental understanding of the baryon-baryon interaction. New dynamical symmetries, forbidden by the Pauli principle in conventional nuclei, appear. Three-body forces play a more significant role. A binding anomaly in A = 5 as well as a possible spin inversion between ground and excited states in A = 4 appear. Surprisingly narrow structure near the threshold for Σ production has been reported in the 4He (K-, π-) spectrum while no corresponding structure is observed in the companion 4He(K-, π+) spectrum; this has been interpreted as evidence for a Σ4He bound state. Finally, the reported observation of ΛΛ-hypernuclei, in particular ΛΛ6He, bears directly upon the possibilities for the prediction of a bound H particle--the S = -2 dibaryon. Although it is not feasible to invert the analysis and determine the interaction from the data on few-body systems, it is possible to utilize these data to constrain the models, provided one is careful. The author will explore briefly the constraints which the few-body data impose and the level of understanding that has been achieved