## Photoproduction of $K^+K^-$ meson pairs on the proton

Lombardo, S. ; Battaglieri, M. ; Celentano, A. ; D’Angelo, A. ; Vita, R. De ; Filippi, A. ; Glazier, D. I. ; Hughes, S. M. ; Mathieu, V. ; Rizzo, A. ; Santopinto, E. ; Stankovic, I. ; Szczepaniak, A. P. ; Watts, D. ; Zana, L. ; Adhikari, S. ; Akbar, Z. ; Avakian, H. ; Ball, J. ; Baltzell, N. A. ; Barion, L. ; Bashkanov, M. ; Batourine, V. ; Bedlinskiy, I. ; Biselli, A. S.

The exclusive reaction $\gamma p \to p K^+ K^-$ was studied in the photon energy range 3.0−3.8 GeV and momentum transfer range $0.6<−t<1.3$ GeV$^2$. Data were collected with the CLAS detector at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. In this kinematic range the integrated luminosity was approximately 20 pb$^{−1}$. The reaction was isolated by detecting the K$^+$ and the proton in CLAS, and reconstructing the K$^−$ via the missing-mass technique. Moments of the di-kaon decay angular distributions were extracted from the experimental data. Besides the dominant contribution of the ϕ meson in the P-wave, evidence for S−P interference was found. The differential production cross sections dσ/dt for individual waves in the mass range of the ϕ resonance were extracted and compared to predictions of a Regge-inspired model. This is the first time the t-dependent cross section of the S-wave contribution to the elastic $K^+K^-$ photoproduction has been measured.

Publication Date:
Sep 27 2018
Date Submitted:
Jul 01 2019
Pagination:
52009
ISSN:
2470-0010
Citation:
Physical Review D
D98
5
External Resources:

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