Puzzle for the Vector Meson Threshold Photoproduction

TL;DR

This paper analyzes high-statistics cross sections for vector meson photoproduction at threshold to extract meson-nucleon scattering lengths, revealing differences in proton transparency for various mesons and discussing future experimental prospects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of vector meson photoproduction data to determine scattering lengths and explores implications for proton transparency and meson production dynamics.

Findings

Proton is more transparent to $\phi$-meson than $\omega$-meson.

J/\psi$-meson shows much less transparency, indicating different interaction strengths.

Extended analysis of $\Upsilon$-meson photoproduction aligns with light-meson results.

Abstract

High-statistics total cross sections for the vector meson photoproduction at the threshold: $\gamma p\to\omega p$ (from A2 at MAMI, ELPH, and CBELSA/TAPS), $\gamma p\to \phi p$ (from CLAS and LEPS), and $\gamma p\to J/\psi p$ (from GlueX) allow one to extract the absolute value of vector meson nucleon scattering length using Vector Meson Dominance (VMD) model. The ``young'' vector meson hypothesis may explain the fact that the obtained scattering length value for the nucleon $\phi$-meson compared to the typical hadron size of approximately $\sim1~\mathrm{fm}$ indicates that the proton is more transparent for the $\phi$-meson compared to the $\omega$-meson and is much less transparent than the $J/\psi$-meson. The extended analysis of $\Upsilon$-meson photoproduction using quasi-data from the QCD approach is in perfect agreement with the light-meson findings using experimental data. Future high-quality experiments by EIC and EicC will have the opportunity to evaluate cases for $J/\psi$- and $\Upsilon$-mesons. It allows one to understand the dynamics of $c\bar{c}$ and $b\bar{b}$ production at the threshold. The ability of J-PARC to measure $\pi^- p\to \phi n$ and $\pi^-p\to J/\psi n$, which are free from the VMD model, is considered.