From (K)over-barN Interactions to (K)over-bar-Nuclear Quasi-Bound States

We review the current status of our study of K--nuclear interactions and K--nuclear quasi-bound states. The adopted K--nuclear optical potential consists of two parts - the single-nucleon one constructed microscopically from chirally motivated (K) over barN amplitudes, and a phenomenological multi-nucleon one constrained in fits to kaonic atoms data. The inclusion of multi-nucleon absorption in our calculations of K- quasi-bound states in many-body systems leads to huge widths, considerably exceeding the binding energies. If this feature is confirmed the observation of such states is unlikely. Finally, a development of a new microscopical model for in-medium K NN absorption is discussed as well.