Photon diffractive dissociation, $\gamma p \to Xp$, has been studied at HERA with the ZEUS detector using $ep$ interactions where the virtuality $Q^2$ of the exchanged photon is smaller than 0.02 GeV$^2$. The squared four-momentum $t$ exchanged at the proton vertex was determined in the range $0.073<|t|<0.40$ GeV$^2$ by measuring the scattered proton in the ZEUS Leading Proton Spectrometer. In the photon-proton centre-of-mass energy interval $176<W<225$ GeV and for masses of the dissociated photon system $4<M_X<32$ GeV, the $t$ distribution has an exponential shape, $dN/d|t| \propto \exp{(-b|t|)}$, with a slope parameter $b=6.8 \pm 0.9$~(stat.)~$ ^{+1.2}_{-1.1}$~(syst.)~GeV$^{-2}$.
T is the squared four momentum transfer at the proton vertex.
SLOPE of the DN/DT distribution.
The analysis of A2−→ηπ− at 11.2 GeV/c confirms that A2− is essentially produced by natural-parity exchange. In the differential cross-section as a function oft′ there is evidence of the dip at smallt′ values. The branching ratio (A2→ηπ)/(A2→ϱπ) is 0.18±0.05.
No description provided.
NUMERICAL VALUES SUPPLIED BY G. THOMPSON. 100 EVENTS IN A2 REGION DEFINED BY 1.18 < M(ETA PI-) < 1.44 GEV.
ROUGH BACKGROUND SUBTRACTION TO REMOVE NON-TRUE ETA EVENTS. FIRST THREE DENSITY MATRIX COMBINATIONS ARE NATURAL-PARITY EXCHANGE, THE REMAINDER BEING UNNATURAL-PARITY EXCHANGE.
A comparison is made of the low-mass three-meson systems (πππ), (Kππ), (π K K ) and ( K K K ) diffractively produced in the reaction meson + proton → three mesons + proton. Several striking similarities and a few important differences are observed: (i) the reactions are consistent with the assumption that the three mesons decay entirely into a 0 − meson and a 0 + , 1 − or 2 + resonance; (ii) the three-meson mass spectra have a peak ≈ 250 MeV above the effective threshold M eff of the dominant decay mode and then fall off approximately as (mass) −3 ;(iii) the average spin 〈 J 〉 = 0.55 + 1.1 Q eff , where Q eff = M - M eff ; (iv) the average orbital angular momentum 〈 l 〉 increases according to 〈 l 〉 = 0.75 Q eff ; (v) the three-meson states are produced dominantly in unnatural spin-parity states and no evidence for their being resonant is found; (vi) the only natural spin-parity states found are the well-established 2 + resonances A 2 and K ∗ (1420); they have similar properties to the non-resonant unnatural parity states except for a dip at t = 0 in the dσ/d t distributions; (vii) both the unnatural and natural spin-parity states are produced mostly by an exchange of natural parity; (viii) there is evidence for two types of production mechanism with different polarization properties, one approximately conserving helicity in the t -channel and the other in the s -channel.
No description provided.