The CLAS Collaboration provides a comment on the physics interpretation of the results presented in a paper published by M. Amaryan et al. regarding the possible observation of a narrow structure in the mass spectrum of a photoproduction experiment.
The $Sigma(1385)$ resonance, or $Sigma^*$, is well-known as part of the standard baryon decuplet with spin $J=3/2$. Measurements of the reaction $gamma p to K^+ Sigma^{*0}$ are difficult to extract due to overlap with the nearby $Lambda(1405)$ resona
nce. However, the reaction $gamma n to K^+ Sigma^{*-}$ has no overlap with the $Lambda(1405)$ due to its charge. Here we report the first measurement of cross sections and beam asymmetries for photoproduction of the sigs from a deuteron target. % where the $K^+$ and $pi^-$ are detected in the LEPS spectrometer. The cross sections at forward angles range from 0.4 to 1.2 $mu$b, with a broad maximum near $E_gamma simeq 1.8$ GeV. The beam asymmetries are negative, in contrast to postive values for the $gamma n to K^+Sigma^-$ reaction.
