Kaonic atoms and in-medium image amplitudes II: Interplay between theory and phenomenology

A microscopic kaonic-atom optical potential image is constructed, using the Ikeda–Hyodo–Weise NLO chiral image subthreshold scattering amplitudes constrained by the kaonic hydrogen SIDDHARTA measurement, and incorporating Pauli correlations within the Waas–Rho–Weise generalization of the Ericson–Ericson multiple-scattering approach. Good fits to kaonic atom data over the entire periodic table require additionally sizable image-motivated absorptive and dispersive phenomenological terms, in agreement with our former analysis based on a post-SIDDHARTA in-medium chirally-inspired NLO separable model by Cieplý and Smejkal. Such terms are included by introducing a phenomenological potential image and coupling it self-consistently to image. Properties of resulting kaonic atom potentials are discussed with special attention paid to the role of image-nuclear absorption and to the extraction of density-dependent amplitudes representing image multi-nucleon processes.