No Arabic abstract
The earlier search at HERMES for narrow baryon states excited in quasi-real photoproduction, decaying through the channel $pK_S^0rightarrow ppi^+pi^-$, has been extended with improved decay-particle reconstruction, more advanced particle identification, and increased event samples. The structure observed earlier at an invariant mass of 1528 MeV shifts to 1522 MeV and the statistical significance drops to about 2$sigma$ for data taken with a deuterium target. The number of events above background is $68_{-31}^{+98}text{(stat)}pm13text{(sys)}$. No such structure is observed in the hydrogen data set.
Evidence for a narrow baryon state at 1528 +- 2.6(stat) +- 2.1(syst) MeV is presented in quasi-real photoproduction on a deuterium target through the decay channel p,K0 to p,pi+,pi-. The statistical significance of the peak in the p,K0 invariant mass spectrum is 4 standard deviations and its extracted intrinsic width Gamma = 17 +- 9(stat) +- 3(syst) MeV. This state may be interpreted as the predicted S=+1 exotic Theta+ (uuddbar{s}) pentaquark baryon.
We have searched for Theta+(1.54) -> K0,p decays using data from the 1999 run of the HyperCP experiment at Fermilab. We see no evidence for a narrow peak in the K0,p mass distribution near 1.54 GeV/c among 106,000 K0,p candidates, and obtain an upper limit for the fraction of Theta+(1.54) to K0,p candidates of <0.3% at 90% confidence.
The data on the reactions K^+Xe --> K^0 gamma X and K^+Xe --> K^+ gamma X, obtained with the bubble chamber DIANA, have been analyzed for possible radiative decays of the Theta^+(1540) baryon: Theta^+ --> K^0 p gamma and Theta^+ --> K^+ n gamma. No signals have been observed, and we derive the upper limits Gamma(Theta^+ --> K^0 p gamma) / Gamma(Theta^+ --> K^0 p) < 0.032 and Gamma(Theta^+ --> K^+ n gamma) / Gamma(Theta^+ --> K^+ n) < 0.041 which, using our previous measurement of Gamma(Theta^+ --> KN) = (0.39+-0.10) MeV, translate to Gamma(Theta^+ --> K^0 p gamma) < 8 keV and Gamma(Theta^+ --> K^+ n gamma) < 11 keV at 90% confidence level. We have also measured the cross sections of K^+ -induced reactions involving emission of a neutral pion: sigma(K^+n --> K^0 p pi^0) = (68+-18) mub and sigma(K^+N --> K^+ N pi^0) = (30+-8) mub for incident K^+ momentum of 640 MeV.
A high-resolution (sigma_instr. = 1.5 MeV) search for narrow states (Gamma < 10 MeV) with masses of M_x approx 1500-1850 MeV in ep -> eK^+ X, eK^- X and e pi^+ X electroproduction at small angles and low Q^2 was performed. These states would be candidate partner states of the reported Theta^+(1540) pentaquark. No statistically significant signal was observed in any of the channels at 90% C.L. Upper limits on forward production were determined to be between 0.7% and 4.2% of the Lambda(1520) production cross section, depending on the channel and the assumed mass and width of the state.
The pentaquark $Theta^+$ has been searched for via the $pi^-p to K^-X$ reaction with beam momenta of 1.92 and 2.01 GeV/$c$ at J-PARC. A missing mass resolution of 2 MeV (FWHM) was achieved but no sharp peak structure was observed. The upper limits on the production cross section averaged over the scattering angle from 2$^{circ}$ to 15$^{circ}$ in the laboratory frame were found to be less than 0.28 $mu$b/sr at the 90% confidence level for both the 1.92- and 2.01-GeV/$c$ data. The systematic uncertainty of the upper limits was controlled within 10%. Constraints on the $Theta^+$ decay width were also evaluated with a theoretical calculation using effective Lagrangian. The present result implies that the width should be less than 0.36 and 1.9 MeV for the spin-parity of $1/2^+$ and $1/2^-$, respectively.