Data analysis techniques, differential cross sections, and spin density matrix elements for the reaction γp→φp

Dey, B.; Meyer, C. A.; Bellis, M.; Williams, M.; Adhikari, K. P.; Adikaram, D.; Aghasyan, M.; Amaryan, M. J.; Anderson, M. D.; Anefalos Pereira, S.; Ball, J.; Baltzell, N. A.; Battaglieri, M.; Bedlinskiy, I.; Biselli, A. S.; Bono, J.; Boiarinov, S.; Briscoe, W. J.; Brooks, W. K.; Burkert, V. D.; Carman, D. S.; Celentano, A.; Chandavar, S.; Colaneri, L.; Cole, P. L.; 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 Alaoui, A.; El Fassi, L.; Elouadrhiri, L.; Fedotov, G.; Fegan, S.; Fleming, J. A.; Garçon, M.; Gevorgyan, N.; Ghandilyan, Y.; Gilfoyle, G. P.; Giovanetti, K. L.; Girod, F. X.; Glazier, D. I.; Goetz, J. T.; Gothe, R. W.; Griffioen, K. A.; Guidal, M.; Hafidi, K.; Hanretty, C.; Harrison, N.; Hattawy, M.; Hicks, K.; Ho, D.; Holtrop, M.; Hyde, C. E.; Ilieva, Y.; Ireland, D. G.; Ishkhanov, B. S.; Jenkins, D.; H. S., Jo; Joo, K.; Keller, D.; Khandaker, M.; Kim, A.; Kim, W.; Klein, A.; Klein, F. J.; Koirala, S.; Kubarovsky, V.; Kuhn, S. E.; Kuleshov, S. V.; Lenisa, Paolo; Livingston, K.; Lu, H.; Macgregor, I. J. D.; Markov, N.; Mayer, M.; Mccracken, M. E.; Mckinnon, B.; Mineeva, T.; Mirazita, M.; Mokeev, V.; Montgomery, R. A.; Moriya, K.; Moutarde, H.; Munevar, E.; Munoz Camacho, C.; Nadel Turonski, P.; Niccolai, S.; Niculescu, G.; Niculescu, I.; Osipenko, M.; Pappalardo, Luciano Libero; Paremuzyan, R.; Park, K.; Pasyuk, E.; Peng, P.; Phillips, J. J.; Pisano, S.; Pogorelko, O.; Pozdniakov, S.; Price, J. W.; Procureur, S.; Protopopescu, D.; Puckett, A. J. R.; Rimal, D.; Ripani, M.; Ritchie, B. G.; Rizzo, A.; Rossi, P.; Roy, P.; Sabatié, F.; Saini, M. S.; Schott, D.; Schumacher, R. A.; Seder, E.; Senderovich, I.; Sharabian, Y. G.; Simonyan, A.; Smith, E. S.; Sober, D. I.; Sokhan, D.; Stepanyan, S. S.; Stoler, P.; Strakovsky, I. I.; Strauch, S.; Sytnik, V.; Taiuti, M.; Tang, W.; Tkachenko, S.; Ungaro, M.; Vernarsky, B.; Vlassov, A. V.; Voskanyan, H.; Voutier, E.; Walford, N. K.; Watts, D. P.; Zachariou, N.; Zana, L.; Zhang, J.; Zhao, Z. W.; Zonta, I.

doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.89.055208

High-statistics measurements of differential cross sections and spin density matrix elements for the reaction γp → φp have been made using the CLAS detector at Jefferson Lab. We cover center-of-mass energies ( √ s) from 1.97 to 2.84 GeV, with an extensive coverage in the φ production angle. The high statistics of the data sample made it necessary to carefully account for the interplay between the φ natural lineshape and effects of the detector resolution, that are found to be comparable in magnitude.We study both the charged- (φ → K + K −) and neutral- (φ → K0 SK0 L)KK decay modes of the φ. Further, for the charged mode, we differentiate between the cases where the final K − track is directly detected or its momentum reconstructed as the total missing momentum in the event. The two charged-mode topologies and the neutral-mode have different resolutions and are calibrated against each other. Extensive usage is made of kinematic fitting to improve the reconstructed φ mass resolution. Our final results are reported in 10- and mostly 30-MeV-wide √ s bins for the charged- and the neutral-modes, respectively. Possible effects from K + ∗ channels with pKK final states are discussed. These present results constitute the most precise and extensive φ photoproduction measurements to date and in conjunction with the ω photoproduction results recently published by CLAS, will greatly improve our understanding of low energy vector meson photoproduction.