Antihyperon-hyperon production in antiproton-proton annihilations with PANDA at FAIR

The production of antihyperon-hyperon pairs in antiproton-proton annihilations involves the annihilation of at least one light (u,d) quark-antiquark pair and the creation of a heavier (s,c,b) pair. Production of strange hyperons occur in an energy region in which QCD is difficult to predict. By studying hyperon production we learn about the strong interaction in this energy region, i.e. the confinement domain. It is an open question what the relevant degrees of freedom are: quarks and gluons, or hadrons. Spin observables is an excellent tool in order to better understand the physical processes. These are accessible via the weak, parity violating decay of the hyperon which results in an angular asymmetry of the decay products. The future PANDA experiment at FAIR is going to be ideally suited to study spin physics on hyperons with both high precision and high statistics. Since hyperons decay weakly and thus have long life-times, their decay vertices are displaced with respect to the production point. This sets high demands on precise track reconstruction. A pattern recognition algorithm is currently under development, with the ability to reconstruct tracks originating in displaced vertices. Simulation studies done by the Uppsala group as well as the status of the development will be presented and discussed.