K⁻ over K⁺ multiplicity ratio for kaons produced in DIS with a large fraction of the virtual-photon energy

The K⁻ over K⁺ multiplicity ratio is measured in deep-inelastic scattering, for the first time for kaons carrying a large fraction z of the virtual-photon energy. The data were obtained by the COMPASS collaboration using a 160 GeV muon beam and an isoscalar ⁶LiD target. The regime of deep-inelastic scattering is ensured by requiring Q²>1(GeV/c)² for the photon virtuality and W>5GeV/c² for the invariant mass of the produced hadronic system. Kaons are identified in the momentum range from 12 GeV/c to 40 GeV/c, thereby restricting the range in Bjorken-x to 0.01<x<0.40. The z-dependence of the multiplicity ratio is studied for z>0.75. For very large values of z, i.e. z>0.8, we observe the kaon multiplicity ratio to fall below the lower limits expected from calculations based on leading and next-to-leading order perturbative quantum chromodynamics. Also, the kaon multiplicity ratio shows a strong dependence on the missing mass of the single-kaon production process. This suggests that within the perturbative quantum chromodynamics formalism an additional correction may be required, which takes into account the phase space available for hadronisation.