Search for the glueball content of hadrons in gamma p interactions at GlueX

TL;DR

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to identify glueball components in scalar mesons through photoproduction processes involving gamma p interactions, aiding experimental searches at JLab.

Contribution

It introduces a novel effective hadronic Lagrangian approach that models glueball and quarkonium mixing in scalar mesons during photoproduction.

Findings

Framework accounts for two-gluon exchange effects in photoproduction.

Results guide experimental searches for glueball signatures.

Model helps interpret scalar meson composition in gamma p interactions.

Abstract

We suggest a theoretical framework for the description of double photon and proton-antiproton photoproduction off the proton gamma + p -> 2 gamma + p and gamma + p -> antip + p + p which takes into account the contribution of the scalar mesons f0(1370), f0(1500) and f0(1710). These scalars are considered as mixed states of a glueball and nonstrange and strange quarkonia. Our framework is based on the use of effective hadronic Lagrangians that phenomenologically take into account two-gluon exchange effects governing the gamma + p -> 2 gamma + p and gamma + p -> antip + p + p processes. Present results can be used to guide the possible search for these reactions by the GlueX Collaboration at JLab.