φ meson mass and decay width in nuclear matter and nuclei

The mass and decay width of the phi meson in cold nuclear matter are computed in an effective Lagrangian approach. The medium dependence of these properties are obtained by evaluating kaon-antikaon loop contributions to the phi self-energy, employing the medium-modified kaon masses, calculated using the quark-meson coupling model. The loop integral is regularized with a dipole form factor, and the sensitivity of the results to the choice of cutoff mass in the form factor is investigated. At normal nuclear matter density we find a downward shift of the phi mass by a few percent, while the decay width is enhanced by an order of magnitude. For a large variation of the cutoff mass parameter, the results for the phi mass and the decay width turn out to vary very little. Our results support results in the literature which suggest that one should observe a small downward mass shift and a large broadening of the decay width. In order to explore the possibility of studying the binding and absorption of phi mesons in nuclei, we also present the single-particle binding energies and half-widths of phi-nucleus bound states for some selected nuclei. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.