$\ddot{I}•$-meson photoproduction on Hydrogen in the neutral decay mode

Abstract

We report the first measurement of the photoproduction cross section of the $\ddot{I}•$ meson in its neutral decay mode in the reaction ${\hat{I}}^{3}p\to p\ddot{I}•(K_S{K}_L)$. The experiment was performed with a tagged photon beam of energy $1.6\le E_{\hat{I}}^3\le 3.6$ GeV incident on a liquid hydrogen target of the CLAS spectrometer at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The $p\ddot{I}•$ final state is identified via reconstruction of $K_S$ in the invariant mass of two oppositely charged pions and by requiring the missing particle in the reaction ${\hat{I}}^{3}p\to p{K}_{S}X$ to be $K_L$. The presented results significantly enlarge the existing data on $\ddot{I}•$-photoproduction. These data, combined with the data from the charged decay mode, will help to constrain different mechanisms of $\ddot{I}•$ photoproduction.