Atomic cascade in kaonic atoms

A two-step analysis is used to develop a formal description of strong interaction effects in highly absorptive hadronic atoms. First an essentially exact description of these effects is derived by applying the theory of the decay of a prepared state to the atomic cascade. Then the exact results are simplified by including only the single-scattering contributions. Applying the single-scattering results to kaonic atoms, we fully characterize the effects of the participation of the K-barN resonance just below threshold. A comprehensive set of approximations to the single-scattering results is presented. These approximations cover all of the procedures followed in previous calculations on strong interaction effects in kaonic atoms. The shortcomings of each of these procedures are discussed in detail. The differences between the single-scattering optical potential and the local potentials used in previous calculations is quantitatively studied. We also investigate the validity of the semiphenomeno-logical optical potential