No Arabic abstract
Meson photoproduction is an important tool in the study of baryon resonances. The spectrum of broad and overlapping nucleon excitations can be greatly clarified by use of polarization observables. The N* program at Jefferson Lab with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) includes experimental studies with linearly and circularly polarized tagged photon beams, longitudinally and transversely polarized nucleon targets, and recoil polarizations. An overview of these experimental studies and recent results will be given.
The spectrum of nucleon excitations is dominated by broad and overlapping resonances. Polarization observables in photoproduction reactions are key in the study of these excitations. They give indispensable constraints to partial-wave analyses and help clarify the spectrum. A series of polarized photoproduction experiments have been performed at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS). These measurements include data with linearly and circularly polarized tagged-photon beams, longitudinally and transversely polarized proton and deuterium targets, and recoil polarizations through the observation of the weak decay of hyperons. An overview of these studies and recent results will be given.
Baryons are complex systems of confined quarks and gluons and exhibit the characteristic spectra of excited states. The systematics of the baryon excitation spectrum is important to our understanding of the effective degrees of freedom underlying nucleon matter. High-energy electrons and photons are a remarkably clean probe of hadronic matter, providing a microscope for examining the nucleon and the strong nuclear force. Current experimental efforts with the CLAS spectrometer at Jefferson Laboratory utilize highly-polarized frozen-spin targets in combination with polarized photon beams. The status of the recent double-polarization experiments and some preliminary results are discussed in this contribution.
The discrepancy between polarized and unpolarized measurements of the protons electromagnetic form factors is striking, and suggests that two-photon exchange (TPE) may be playing a larger role in elastic electron-proton scattering than is estimated in standard radiative corrections formulae. While TPE is difficult to calculate in a model-independent way, it can be determined experimentally from asymmetries between electron-proton and positron-proton scattering. The possibility of a polarized positron beam at Jefferson Lab would open the door to measurements of TPE using polarization observables. In these proceedings, I examine the feasibility of measuring three such observables with positron scattering. Polarization-transfer, specifically the $epsilon$-dependence for fixed $Q^2$, is an excellent test of TPE, and the ability to compare electrons and positrons would lead to a drastic reduction of systematics. However, such a measurement would be severely statistically limited. Normal single-spin asymmetries (SSAs) probe the imaginary part of the TPE amplitude and can be improved by simultaneous measurements with electron and positron beams. Beam-normal SSAs are too small to be measured with the proposed polarized positron beam, but target-normal SSAs could be feasibly measured with unpolarized positrons in the spectrometer halls. This technique should be included in the physics case for developing a positron source for Jefferson Lab.
Studies of the nucleon resonance electroexcitation amplitudes in a wide range of photon virtualities offer unique information on many facets of strong QCD behind the generation of all prominent excited nucleon states. Advances in the evaluation of resonance electroexcitation amplitudes from the data measured with the CLAS detector and the future extension of these studies with the CLAS12 detector at Jefferson Lab are presented. For the first time, analyses of $pi^0p$, $pi^+n$, $eta p$, and $pi^+pi^-p$ electroproduction off proton channels have provided electroexcitation amplitudes of most resonances in the mass range up to 1.8 GeV and at photon virtualities $Q^2 < 5$~GeV$^2$.Studies of the resonance electroexcitation amplitudes revealed the $N^*$ structure as a complex interplay between the inner core of three dressed quarks and the external meson-baryon cloud. The successful description of the $Delta(1232)3/2^+$ and $N(1440)1/2^+$ electrocouplings achieved within the Dyson-Schwinger Equation approach under a traceable connection to the QCD Lagrangian and supported by the novel light front quark model demonstrated the relevance of dressed quarks with dynamically generated masses as an active structural component in baryons. Future experiments with the CLAS12 detector will offer insight into the structure of all prominent resonances at the highest photon virtualities, $Q^2 < 12$~GeV$^2$, ever achieved in exclusive reactions, thus addressing the most challenging problems of the Standard Model on the nature of hadron mass, quark-gluon confinement, and the emergence of nucleon resonance structures from QCD. A search for new states of hadronic matter, the so-called hybrid-baryons with glue as a structural component, will complete the long term efforts on the resonance spectrum exploration.
One of the remaining challenges within the standard model is to gain a good understanding of QCD in the non-perturbative regime. One key step toward this aim is baryon spectroscopy, investigating the spectrum and the properties of baryon resonances. To get access to resonances with small $pi N$ partial width, photoproduction experiments provide essential information. In order to extract the contributing resonances, partial wave analyses need to be performed. Here, a complete experiment is required to unambiguously determine the contributing amplitudes. This involves the measurement of carefully chosen single and double polarization observables. The CBELSA/TAPS experiment with a longitudinally or transversely polarized target and an energy tagged, linearly or circularly polarized photon beam allows the measurement of a large set of polarization observables. Due to its good energy resolution, high detection efficiency for photons, and the nearly complete solid angle coverage it is ideally suited for the measurement of photoproduction of neutral mesons decaying into photons. Recent results for various double polarization observables in $pi^0$ and $eta$ photoproduction and their impact on the partial wave analysis are discussed.