Tensor meson photoproduction is described as either a direct production process or a consequence of the final state pipi interactions. We calculate the mass distributions for selected partial waves and confront our predictions with the measurements of the CLAS experiment. We also point out the structures in the photoproduction amplitudes which may result in observable effects able to indicate the dominant tensor meson photoporduction mechanism.
We construct the amplitudes of $pieta$ photoproduction taking into account the effects of the $pieta$ - $Kbar K$ interchannel coupling. The idea of our model is close to the molecular description of scalar resonances with exception that apart from the pseudoscalar loops we include also vector mesons in the intermediate state loops. These amplitudes are used to calculate the $S$-wave cross sections and mass distributions in the $pieta$ effective mass region corresponding to the scalar resonances $a_0(980)$ and $a_0(1450)$. The values we obtained for $a_0(980)$ are comparable with predictions of other models while the cross section for $a_0(1450)$ is about an order of magnitude larger than prediction based on the quark model. We show that the amplitudes with loops containing vector mesons calculated in the on-shell approximation are not suppressed in contrast to amplitudes containing only pseudoscalar loops. We estimate the cross sections for the $P$- and $D$- waves in the $pieta$ channel.
We study tensor meson photoproduction outside of the resonance region, at beam energies of few GeVs. We build a model based on Regge theory that includes the leading vector and axial exchanges. We consider two determinations of the unknown helicity couplings, and fit to the recent a2 photoproduction data from CLAS. Both choices give a similar description of the a2 cross section, but result in different predictions for the parity asymmetries and the f2 photoproduction cross section. We conclude that new measurements of f2 photoproduction in the forward region are needed to pin down the correct production mechanism. We also extend our predictions to the 8.5 GeV beam energy, where current experiments are running.
We calculate high-energy photoproduction of the tensor meson $f_2(1270)$ by odderon and photon exchange in the reaction $gamma + {rm{p}} to f_2(1270) + {rm{X}}$, where X is either the nucleon or the sum of the N(1520) and N(1535) baryon resonances. Odderon exchange dominates except at very small transverse momentum, and we find a cross section of about 20 nb at a centre-of-mass energy of 20 GeV. This result is compared with what is currently known experimentally about $f_2$ photoproduction. We conclude that odderon exchange is not ruled out by present data. On the contrary, an odderon-induced cross section of the above magnitude may help to explain a puzzling result observed by the E687 experiment.
To learn about a physical system of interest, experimental results must be able to discriminate among models. We introduce a geometrical measure to quantify the distance between models for pseudoscalar-meson photoproduction in amplitude space. Experimental observables, with finite accuracy, map to probability distributions in amplitude space, and the characteristic width scale of such distributions needs to be smaller than the distance between models if the observable data are going to be useful. We therefore also introduce a method for evaluating probability distributions in amplitude space that arise as a result of one or more measurements, and show how one can use this to determine what further measurements are going to be necessary to be able to discriminate among models.
In the present talk, we report a recent investigation on photoproduction of the $gamma N to f_0(500)N$ within a framework of the effective Lagrangian. We include the nucleon resonances with pin $1/2$ in the $s$ channel. The coupling constants have been etermined by assuming that the decay process $N^* to (pipi)_{I=0,J=0}N$ can be regarded as $N^* to f_0(500) N$. We discuss the numerical results for the total cross sections and possible extension of the present work.