The inclusive kappa production cross sections were measured at angles from 15 to 80° in collisions of protons (2.1 GeV) and deuterons (2.1 GeV/amu) on NaF and Pb, and Ne (2.1 GeV/amu) on C, NaF, KCl, Cu, and Pb. The kaons were identified by measuring the time of flight and the momentum in a magnetic spectrometer, and by detecting the particles from the kaon decays in a Pb glass Cerenkov counter. The momentum range of the detected kaons extended from 350 MeV/c to 750 MeV/c. The multiplicity of each event was measured by a set of scintillation counter telescopes which were situated around the target. The differential cross section of the kaons falls off exponentially with center of mass energy in the nucleon nucleon center of mass frame. In addition, the angular distribution of the kaons is nearly isotropic in this frame even for p−1 NaF and Ne−1 Pb collisions. The data are compared with a row on row model and a thermal model. Neither are able to explain all features of the data. The row on row model does not reproduce the near isotropy in the nucleon nucleon frame, and the thermal model overpredicts the kaon yield by a factor of approximately twenty.

Single particle inclusive spectra are presented for pion and kaon production in Si+Au reactions at an incident momentum of 14.6 A · GeV/c and Au+Au reactions at an incident momentum of 11.6 A · GeV/c. A simple geometric scaling of the pion production for central collisions as A{sub proj}13 and A{sub targ}23 results from the observed production of about one pion per participant. Kaon yields are shown to be proportional to the number of excited participants and consistent with RQMD and ARC calculations.