Production and Width of the Pentaquark Theta+(1540) in Strangeness Production in the Proton-Proton System

We analyze recent experimental information on the excitation of the Theta+(1540) pentaquark in the hadronic reaction pp -> p Sigma+ K0. Upon describing the conventional production process - which serves as a normalization - in a meson exchange model, we estimate the resonant Theta+ induced cross section and the width of the pentaquark via K - exchange in a meson-baryon and a quark-gluon model. From a comparison with experiment we extract information on the width of the Theta+, the p Theta+ K0 coupling constant in the meson exchange and the relative s or p wave function for a nucleon-kaon cluster in the Theta+.