Beam Asymmetry Σ for π+ and π0 Photoproduction on the Proton for Photon Energies From 1.102 to 1.862 GeV

Beam asymmetries for the reactions ˠp -\u3e pπ0 and ˠp -\u3e nπ+have been measured with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) and a tagged, linearly polarized photon beam with energies from 1.102-1.862 GeV. A Fourier moment technique for extracting beam asymmetries from experimental data is described. The results reported here possess greater precision and finer energy resolution than previous measurements. Our data for both pion reactions appear to favor the SAID and Bonn-Gatchina scattering analyses over the older Mainz MAID predictions. After incorporating the present set of beam asymmetries into the world database, exploratory fits made with the SAID analysis indicate that the largest changes from previous fits are for properties of the Δ(1700)3/2- and Δ(1905) 5/2+ states

Observation of a narrow structure in p(gamma,K_s)X via interference with phi-meson production

We report observation of a narrow peak structure at ~1.54 GeV with a Gaussian width sigma=6 MeV in the missing of K_s in the reaction gamma+p = pK_sK_L. The observed structure may be due to the interference between a strange (or anti-strange) baryon resonance in the pK_L system and the phi(K_sK_L) photoproduction leading to the same final state. The statistical significance of the observed excess of events estimated as the log likelihood ratio of the resonant signal+background hypothesis and the phi-production based background only hypothesis corresponds to 5.3 sigma.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review C, 9 pages, 11 figures, 1 table added, revise

Beam Spin Asymmetry in Semi-Inclusive Electroproduction of Hadron Pairs

A first measurement of the longitudinal beam spin asymmetry ALU in the semi-inclusive electroproduction of pairs of charged pions is reported. ALU is a higher-twist observable and offers the cleanest access to the nucleon twist-3 parton distribution function e(x). Data have been collected in the Hall-B at Jefferson Lab by impinging a 5.498-GeV electron beam on a liquid-hydrogen target, and reconstructing the scattered electron and the pion pair with the CLAS detector. One-dimensional projections of the AsinLUϕR moments are extracted for the kinematic variables of interest in the valence quark region. The understanding of dihadron production is essential for the interpretation of observables in single-hadron production in semi-inclusive DIS, and pioneering measurements of single-spin asymmetries in dihadron production open a new avenue in studies of QCD dynamics

First Measurement of Direct Photoproduction of the a\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e(1320)⁰ Meson on the Proton

We present the first measurement of the reaction p -\u3e a₂(1320)⁰ p in the photon energy range 3.5-5.5 GeV and four-momentum transfer squared 0.2 \u3c -t \u3c 2.0 GeV2. Data were collected with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer detector at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The a2resonance was detected by measuring the reaction p → π0ηp and reconstructing the π0η invariant mass. The most prominent feature of the differential cross section is a dip at -t ≈ 0.55 GeV2. This can be described in the framework of Regge phenomenology, where the exchange degeneracy hypothesis predicts a zero in the reaction amplitude for this value of the four-momentum transfer