Associated Strangeness Production in the Threshold Region

Associated strangeness production close to threshold is a particularly clean example of how energy is converted into hadronic matter. Final results from the completed experiments of the PS185 collaboration at LEAR/CERN, using the antiproton-proton interaction to produce antihyperon-hyperon pairs, demonstrate that such studies form a powerful tool. First results from the ongoing investigations of the COSY-11 collaboration at COSY-J"ulich, measuring the strangeness dissociation into both hyperon-kaon and kaon-kaon pairs from proton-proton scattering, are presented and plans for further investigations are discussed. Finally, an interesting possibility for future studies of the strangeness production mechanism in the antiproton-proton interactions with antiproton beams of momenta >5 GeV/c is suggested.