Antikaon nuclear potential in hot and dense matter -: art. no. 054907

The antikaon optical potential in hot and dense nuclear matter is studied within the framework of a coupled-channel self-consistent calculation taking, as bare meson-baryon interaction, the meson-exchange potential of the Julich group. Typical conditions found in heavy-ion collisions at GSI are explored. As in the case of zero temperature, the angular momentum components larger than L = 0 contribute significantly to the finite temperature antikaon optical potential at finite momentum. It is found that the particular treatment of the medium effects has a strong influence on the behavior of the antikaon potential with temperature. Our self-consistent model, in which antikaons and pions are dressed in the medium, gives a moderately temperature dependent antikaon potential which remains attractive at GSI temperatures, contrary to what one finds if only nuclear Pauli blocking effects are included.