In-Medium Properties of Hadrons

A diverse experimental program for the study of the photoproduction of mesons off nuclei has been carried out - and is still running - at the Mainz MAMI and Bonn ELSA electron accelerators with the TAPS, Crystal Barrel, and Crystal Ball calorimeters. It is motivated as a detailed study of the in-medium properties of hadrons and the meson - nucleus interactions. Typical examples for the in-medium behavior of vector mesons ($\omega$), scalar mesons ($\sigma$), and nucleon resonances (P$_{33}$(1232), S$_{11}$(1535), D$_{15}$(1520)) are discussed. Special attention is paid to meson - nucleus final state interactions.Comment: Proceedings of the Meson2006 IX Int. Workshop on Production, Properties and Interaction of Mesons, Cracow, Poland 09 - 14 June, 2006, to be published in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

Investigation of the anomaly in eta-photoproduction off the neutron

Quasi-free photoproduction of eta-mesons off the neutron and off the proton has been studied using a deuterium target and bremsstrahlung photons produced by MAMI-C with incident energies up to 1.5 GeV. The eta-mesons were detected in coincidence with the recoil nucleons thus a fully exclusive measurement was performed. Preliminary results show a bump-like structure in the excitation function for the neutron close to W $\approx$ 1675 MeV which is not seen for the proton. Considering the experimental resolution and using a Breit-Wigner fit the width of this structure was approximated below 50 MeV.Comment: oral contribution to the workshop on physics of the excited nucleon - NSTAR 2009, Beijing, April 200

Studying the ω\omega properties in pA collisions via the ω→π0γ\omega{\to}\pi^0\gamma decay

Within transport calculations we study the production and decay of $\omega$-mesons in $pA$ reactions at COSY energies including elastic and inelastic ${\omega}N$ rescattering, the $\omega{\to}\pi^0\gamma$ Dalitz decay as well as $\pi^0 N$ rescattering. The resulting invariant $\pi^0 \gamma$ mass distributions indicate that in-medium modifications of the $\omega$-meson may be observed experimentally.Comment: 5 pages, espcrc2-style, including 5 ps-figure

Medium effects in the production and pi0 gamma decay of omega-mesons in pA collisions in the GeV region

The omega-resonance production and its pi0 gamma decay in p-A reactions close to threshold is considered within the Intranuclear Cascade (INC) Model. The pi0 gamma invariant mass distribution shows two components which correspond to the omega decay 'inside' and 'outside' the nucleus, respectively. The 'inside' component is distorted by medium effects, which introduce a mass shift as well as collisional broadening for the omega-meson and its decaying pion. The relative contribution of the 'inside' component is analyzed in detail for different kinematical conditions and nuclear targets. It is demonstrated that a measurement of the correlation in azimuthal angle between the pi0 and gamma momenta allows to separate events related to the 'inside' omega decay from different sources of background when uncorrelated pi0's and gamma's are produced.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure

Transition form factors of the N*(1535) as a dynamically generated resonance

We discuss how electromagnetic properties provide useful tests of the nature of resonances, and we study these properties for the N*(1535) which appears dynamically generated from the strong interaction of mesons and baryons. Within this coupled channel chiral unitary approach, we evaluate the A_1/2 and S_1/2 helicity amplitudes as a function of Q^2 for the electromagnetic N*(1535) to gamma* N transition. Within the same formalism we evaluate the cross section for the reactions gamma N to eta N. We find a fair agreement for the absolute values of the transition amplitudes, as well as for the Q^2 dependence of the amplitudes, within theoretical and experimental uncertainties discussed in the paper. The ratios obtained between the S_1/2 and A_1/2 for the neutron or proton states of the N*(1535) are in qualitative agreement with experiment and there is agreement on the signs. The same occurs for the ratio of cross sections for the eta photoproduction on neutron and proton targets in the vicinity of the N*(1535) energy. The global results support the idea of this resonance as being dynamically generated, hence, largely built up from meson baryon components. However, the details of the model indicate that an admixture with a genuine quark state is also demanded that could help obtain a better agreement with experimental data.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, REVTe

Spectator detection for the measurement of proton neutron interactions at ANKE

A telescope of three silicon detectors has been installed close to the internal target position of the ANKE spectrometer, which is situated inside the ultra-high vacuum of the COSY-Juelich light-ion storage ring. The detection and identification of slow protons and deuterons emerging from a deuterium cluster-jet target thus becomes feasible. A good measurement of the energy and angle of such a spectator proton (p_sp) allows one to identify a reaction as having taken place on the neutron in the target and then to determine the kinematical variables of the ion-neutron system on an event-by-event basis over a range of c.m. energies. The system has been successfully tested under laboratory conditions. By measuring the spectator proton in the p d to p_sp d pi^0 reaction in coincidence with a fast deuteron in the ANKE Forward Detector, values of the p n to d pi^0 total cross-section have been deduced. Further applications of the telescope include the determination of the luminosity and beam polarisation which are required for several experiments.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figure

Exclusive measurement of coherent eta photoproduction from the deuteron

Coherent photoproduction of eta mesons from the deuteron has been measured from threshold up to incident photon energies of 750 MeV using the photon spectrometer TAPS at the tagged photon facility at the Mainz microtron MAMI. For the first time, differential coherent cross sections have been deduced from the coincident detection of the eta meson and the recoil deuteron. A missing energy analysis was used for the suppression of background events so that a very clean identification of coherent eta-photoproduction was achieved. The resulting cross sections agree with previous experimental results except for angles around 90 deg in the photon-deuteron cm-system where they are smaller. They are compared to various model calculations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Near threshold eta meson production in the d+d->alpha+eta reaction

The d+d->alpha+eta reaction has been investigated near threshold using the ANKE facility at COSY-Juelich. Both total and differential cross sections have been measured at two excess energies, Q=2.6 MeV and 7.7 MeV, with a subthreshold measurement being undertaken at Q=-2.6 MeV to study the physical background. While consistent with isotropy at the lower energy, the angular distribution reveals a pronounced anisotropy at the higher one, indicating the presence of higher partial waves. Options for the decomposition into partial amplitudes and their consequences for determination of the s-wave eta-alpha scattering length are discussed.Comment: 8pp, fig.3 added, normalisation in eq.4.1 correcte

Pluto: A Monte Carlo Simulation Tool for Hadronic Physics

Pluto is a Monte-Carlo event generator designed for hadronic interactions from Pion production threshold to intermediate energies of a few GeV per nucleon, as well as for studies of heavy ion reactions. This report gives an overview of the design of the package, the included models and the user interface.Comment: XI International Workshop on Advanced Computing and Analysis Techniques in Physics Research, April 23-27 2007, Amsterdam, the Netherland

Evidence of kaon nuclear and Coulomb potential effects on soft K+ production from nuclei

The ratio of forward K+ production on copper, silver and gold targets to that on carbon has been measured at proton beam energies between 1.5 and 2.3 GeV as a function of the kaon momentum p_K using the ANKE spectrometer at COSY-Juelich. The strong suppression in the ratios observed for p_K<200-250 MeV/c can be ascribed to a combination of Coulomb and nuclear repulsion in the K+A system. This opens a new way to investigate the interaction of K+-mesons in the nuclear medium. Our data are consistent with a K+A nuclear potential of V_K~20 MeV at low kaon momenta and normal nuclear density. Given the sensitivity of the data to the kaon potential, the current experimental precision might allow one to determine V_K to better than 3 MeV.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures; changed conten