Quasi-free photoproduction of eta-mesons off the deuteron

Precise data for quasi-free photoproduction of $\eta$ mesons off the deuteron have been measured at the Bonn ELSA accelerator with the combined Crystal Barrel/TAPS detector for incident photon energies up to 2.5 GeV. The $\eta$-mesons have been detected in coincidence with recoil protons and neutrons. Possible nuclear effects like Fermi motion and re-scattering can be studied via a comparison of the quasi-free reaction off the bound proton to $\eta$-production off the free proton. No significant effects beyond the folding of the free cross section with the momentum distribution of the bound protons have been found. These Fermi motion effects can be removed by an analysis using the invariant mass of the $\eta$-nucleon pairs reconstructed from the final state four-momenta of the particles. The total cross section for quasi-free $\eta$-photoproduction off the neutron reveals even without correction for Fermi motion a pronounced bump-like structure around 1 GeV of incident photon energy, which is not observed for the proton. This structure is even narrower in the invariant mass spectrum of the $\eta$-neutron pairs. Position and width of the peak in the invariant mass spectrum are $W\approx 1665$ MeV and FWHM $\Gamma\approx 25$ MeV. The data are compared to the results of different models.Comment: accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.

The Q2 dependence of the generalized Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn integral for the proton.

The dependence on Q2 (the negative square of the 4-momentum of the exchanged virtual photon) of the generalised Gerasimov–Drell–Hearn integral for the proton has been measured in the range 1.2 GeV2<Q2<12 GeV2 by scattering longitudinally polarised positrons on a longitudinally polarised hydrogen gas target. The contributions of the nucleon-resonance and deep inelastic regions to this integral have been evaluated separately. The latter has been found to dominate for Q2>3 GeV2, while both contributions are important at low Q2. The total integral shows no significant deviation from a 1/Q2 behaviour in the measured Q2 range, and thus no sign of large effects due to either nucleon-resonance excitations or nonleading twist