Study of Excited $Ξ$ Baryons with the PANDA Detector

Abstract: 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 $\Delta$ spectroscopy. Nevertheless, the study of the double and triple strange baryon spectrum provides independent information to the $N^*$ and $\Delta$ spectra. The future antiproton experiment PANDA will provide direct access to final states containing a $\bar{\Xi}\Xi$ pair, for which production cross sections up to $\mu$b are expected in $\bar{p}p$ 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 $\sim 10^6$ events$/$day. With a nearly $4\pi$ detector acceptance, PANDA will thus be a hyperon factory. In this study, reactions of the type $\bar{p}p\rightarrow \bar{\Xi}^+ \Xi^{*-}$ as well as $\bar{p}p\rightarrow \bar{\Xi}^{*+} \Xi^{-}$ 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.