November, 2007
ABSTRACT: The primary motivation of this thesis project is to provide sufficient evidence for the experimental detection of the quantum chromodynamic (QCD) molecular state between a Φ meson and a nucleon. Evidence of this bound state would confirm the presence of the at-tractive QCD van der Waals interactions, mediated by multi-gluon exchange. Such interactions are thought to be dominant between two color singlet hadrons with no common quarks, and are expected to be enhanced at low velocities. This thesis completes the preliminary study of the experimental feasibility of detect-ing a Φ-N bound state by estimating the production rate of each of the channels considered in the Monte Carlo simulations for Φ meson photoproduction. The production rates of the two background channels are determined by using the differential cross-section obtain from CLAS g10 data for near threshold Φ meson photoproduction from hydrogen target.
Here is the thesis in PDF: Thesis.pdf (about 1.8 MBytes)