φ-meson photoproduction on Hydrogen in the neutral decay mode

Seraydaryan, H.; Amaryan, M. J.; Gavalian, G.; Baghdasaryan, H.; Weinstein, L.; Adhikari, K. P.; Adikaram, D.; Aghasyan, M.; Anderson, M. D.; Anefalos Pereira, S.; Avakian, H.; Ball, J.; Baltzell, N. A.; Battaglieri, M.; Batourine, V.; Bedlinskiy, I.; Bennett, R. P.; Biselli, A. S.; Bono, J.; Boiarinov, S.; Briscoe, W. J.; Brooks, W. K.; Bültmann, S.; Burkert, V. D.; Carman, D. S.; Celentano, A.; Chandavar, S.; Collins, P.; Contalbrigo, Marco; Cortes, O.; Crede, V.; D'Angelo, A.; Dashyan, N.; De Vita, R.; De Sanctis, E.; Deur, A.; Djalali, C.; Doughty, D.; Dugger, M.; Dupre, R.; El Fassi, L.; Eugenio, P.; Fedotov, G.; Fegan, S.; Fersch, R.; Fleming, J. A.; Gevorgyan, N.; Giovanetti, K. L.; Girod, F. X.; Goetz, J. T.; Gohn, W.; Golovatch, E.; Gothe, R. W.; Griffioen, K. A.; Guidal, M.; Guler, N.; Guo, L.; Hafidi, K.; Hakobyan, H.; Hanretty, C.; Harrison, N.; Heddle, D.; Hicks, K.; Ho, D.; Holtrop, M.; Hyde, C. E.; Ilieva, Y.; Ireland, D. G.; Ishkhanov, B. S.; Isupov, E. L.; H. S., Jo; Joo, K.; Keller, D.; Khandaker, M.; Kim, A.; Kim, W.; Klein, F. J.; Koirala, S.; Kubarovsky, A.; Kubarovsky, V.; Kuhn, S. E.; Kuleshov, S. V.; Lewis, S.; Livingston, K.; H. Y., Lu; Macgregor, I. J. D.; Martinez, D.; Mayer, M.; Mckinnon, B.; Mineeva, T.; Mirazita, M.; Mokeev, V.; Montgomery, R. A.; Moutarde, H.; Munevar, E.; Munoz Camacho, C.; Nadel Turonski, P.; Nasseripour, R.; Niccolai, S.; Niculescu, I.; Osipenko, M.; Ostrovidov, A. I.; Pappalardo, Luciano Libero; Paremuzyan, R.; Park, K.; Park, S.; Pasyuk, E.; Phelps, E.; Phillips, J. J.; Pisano, S.; Pogorelko, O.; Pozdniakov, S.; Price, J. W.; Protopopescu, D.; Puckett, A. J. R.; Rimal, D.; Ripani, M.; Ritchie, B. G.; Rizzo, A.; Rosner, G.; Rossi, P.; Sabatié, F.; Saini, M. S.; Salgado, C.; Schott, D.; Schumacher, R. A.; Seder, E.; Sharabian, Y. G.; Smith, G. D.; Sober, D. I.; Sokhan, D.; Stepanyan, S.; Stoler, P.; Strakovsky, I. I.; Strauch, S.; Tang, W.; Taylor, C. E.; Tian, Ye; Tkachenko, S.; Ungaro, M.; Vineyard, M. F.; Voskanyan, H.; Voutier, E.; Walford, N. K.; Watts, D. P.; Weinstein, L. B.; Wood, M. H.; Zachariou, N.; Zana, L.; Zhang, J.; Zhao, Z. W.

doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.89.055206

We report the first measurement of the photoproduction cross section of the φ meson in its neutral decay mode in the reaction γp → pφ(KSKL). The experiment was performed with a tagged photon beam of energy 1.6 Eγ 3.6 GeV incident on a liquid hydrogen target of the CLAS spectrometer at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The pφ final state is identified via reconstruction of KS in the invariant mass of two oppositely charged pions and by requiring the missing particle in the reaction γp → pKSX to be KL. The presented results significantly enlarge the existing data on φ photoproduction. These data, combined with the data from the charged decay mode, will help to constrain different mechanisms of φ photoproduction.