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Associate K^0 production in p+p collisions at 3.5 GeV: The role of Delta(1232)++

An exclusive analysis of the 4-body final states $\mathrm{Λ+ p + π^{+} + K^{0}}$ and $\mathrm{Σ^{0} + p + π^{+} + K^{0}}$ measured with HADES for p+p collisions at a beam kinetic energy of 3.5 GeV is presented. The analysis uses various phase space variables, such as missing mass and invariant mass distributions, in the four particle event selection (p, $π^+$, $π^+$, $π^-$) to find cross sections of the different production channels, contributions of the intermediate resonances $\mathrm{Δ^{++}}$ and $\mathrm{Σ(1385)^{+}}$ and corresponding angular distributions. A dominant resonant production is seen, where the reaction $\mathrm{Λ+ Δ^{++} + K^{0}}$ has an about ten times higher cross section ($\mathrm{29.45\pm0.08^{+1.67}_{-1.46}\pm2.06\,μb}$) than the analogous non-resonant reaction ($\mathrm{2.57\pm0.02^{+0.21}_{-1.98}\pm0.18\,μb}$). A similar result is obtained in the corresponding $Σ^{0}$ channels with $\mathrm{9.26\pm0.05^{+1.41}_{-0.31}\pm0.65\,\ mu b}$ in the resonant and $\mathrm{1.35\pm0.02^{+0.10}_{-1.35}\pm0.09\,μb}$ in the non-resonant reactions.