Electroproduction of the omega meson was investigated in the p(e,ep)omega reaction. The measurement was performed at a 4-momentum transfer Q2 ~ 0.5 GeV2. Angular distributions of the virtual photon-proton center-of-momentum cross sections have been extracted over the full angular range. These distributions exhibit a strong enhancement over t-channel parity exchange processes in the backward direction. According to a newly developed electroproduction model, this enhancement provides significant evidence of resonance formation in the gamma* p -> omega p reaction channel.
An experimental study of $omega$ photoproduction on the proton was conducted by using the Crystal Ball and TAPS multiphoton spectrometers together with the photon tagging facility at the Mainz Microtron MAMI. The $gamma ptoomega p$ differential cross sections are measured from threshold to the incident-photon energy $E_gamma=1.40$ GeV ($W=1.87$ GeV for the center-of-mass energy) with 15-MeV binning in $E_gamma$ and full production-angle coverage. The quality of the present data near threshold gives access to a variety of interesting physics aspects. As an example, an estimation of the $omega N$ scattering length $alpha_{omega p}$ is provided.
The first measurement of the p n -> d omega total cross section has been achieved at mean excess energies of Q = 28 and 57 MeV by using a deuterium cluster-jet target. The momentum of the fast deuteron was measured in the ANKE spectrometer at COSY-Juelich and that of the slow spectator proton p(sp) from the p d -> p(sp) d omega reaction in a silicon telescope placed close to the target. The cross sections lie above those measured for p p -> p p omega but seem to be below theoretical predictions.
The total cross section for omega production in the pp -> pp omega reaction has been measured at five c.m. excess energies from 3.8 to 30 MeV. The energy dependence is easily understood in terms of a strong proton-proton final state interaction combined with a smearing over the width of the state. The ratio of near-threshold phi and omega production is consistent with the predictions of a one-pion-exchange model and the degree of violation of the OZI rule is similar to that found in the pi-p -> n omega/phi reactions.
Using a relativistic effective Lagrangian at the hadronic level, near-threshold $omega$ and $phi$ meson productions in proton proton ($pp$) collisions, $p p to p p omega/phi$, are studied within the distorted wave Born approximation. Both initial and final state $pp$ interactions are included. In addition to total cross section data, both $omega$ and $phi$ angular distribution data are used to constrain further the model parameters. For the $p p to p p omega$ reaction we consider two different possibilities: with and without the inclusion of nucleon resonances. The nucleon resonances are included in a way to be consistent with the $pi^- p to omega n$ reaction. It is shown that the inclusion of nucleon resonances can describe the data better overall than without their inclusion. However, the SATURNE data in the range of excess energies $Q < 31$ MeV are still underestimated by about a factor of two. As for the $p p to p p phi$ reaction it is found that the presently limited available data from DISTO can be reproduced by four sets of values for the vector and tensor $phi NN$ coupling constants. Further measurements of the energy dependence of the total cross section near threshold energies should help to constrain better the $phi NN$ coupling constant.
Photoproduction of the $omega$ meson on the proton has been experimentally studied near the threshold. The total cross sections are determined at incident energies ranging from 1.09 to 1.15 GeV. The 1/2 and 3/2 spin-averaged scattering length $a_{omega p}$ and effective range $r_{omega p}$ between the $omega$ meson and proton are estimated from the shape of the total cross section as a function of the incident photon energy: $a_{omega p} = left(-0.97^{+0.16_{rm stat}}_{-0.16_{rm stat}}{}^{+0.03_{rm syst}}_{-0.00_{rm syst}}right)+i left(0.07^{+0.15_{rm stat}}_{-0.14_{rm stat}}{}^{+0.17_{rm syst}}_{-0.09_{rm syst}}right)$ fm and $r_{omega p}=left(+2.78^{+0.68_{rm stat}}_{-0.54_{rm stat}}{}^{+0.11_{rm syst}}_{-0.13_{rm syst}}right)+ileft(-0.01^{+0.46_{rm stat}}_{-0.50_{rm stat}}{}^{+0.07_{rm syst}}_{-0.00_{rm syst}}right)$ fm, resulting in a repulsive force. The real and imaginary parts for $a_{omega p}$ and $r_{omega p}$ are determined separately for the first time. A small $P$-wave contribution does not affect the obtained values.