Speaker
Description
Studies of the exclusive production of the $\eta$ meson in photonuclear reactions offer a wide range of physics insight. These include constraining models of hadron photoproduction, insight into the spectrum of excited N* states, and may even provide a probe into the structure of the nucleon at wide-angles of production. GlueX, a high-intensity photoproduction experiment located at Hall D of Jefferson Lab, measures exclusive $\eta$ mesons off the proton with large statistics and comparatively low background. We present cross section measurements of $\eta$ photoproduction at $E_\gamma=$ 6-11 GeV and find consistent results using the decay modes $\eta\rightarrow\gamma\gamma$, $\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0$, and $\pi^0\pi^0\pi^0$. When studied as a function of Mandelstam $t$, these cross sections can constrain models describing $\eta$ production in terms of $t$-channel Reggeon exchange. Such measurements inform future searches for exotic hybrid mesons and serve as a benchmark for the Jefferson Lab Eta Factory, a future upgrade to the existing GlueX facility focused on rare $\eta$ decays.
This work is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Grant No. SAPPJ-2018-00021.
| email address | Jonathan.Zarling@uregina.ca |
|---|---|
| Please select: Experiment or Theory | Experiment |
