Central production of mesons: Exotic states versus Pomeron structure

TL;DR

This paper explores how the azimuthal dependence in central meson production can reveal the nature of the Pomeron and distinguish between q-qbar and glueball states, with implications for various collider experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a method to test the Pomeron coupling structure and differentiate meson types using azimuthal distributions in hadronic and electron-positron collisions.

Findings

Azimuthal dependence can unambiguously test Pomeron coupling nature.

Discrimination between q-qbar and glueball production is possible.

Predictions extend to collider processes like HERA and electron-positron colliders.

Abstract

We demonstrate that the azimuthal dependence of central meson production in hadronic collisions, when suitably binned, provides unambiguous tests of whether the Pomeron couples like a conserved vector-current to protons. We discuss the possibility of discriminating between q-qbar and glueball production in such processes. Our predictions apply also to meson production in tagged two-photon events at electron--positron colliders and to vector-meson production in ep collisions at HERA.