Photoproduction of eta and eta-prime mesons off nucleons close to threshold

Abstract

The importance of Born terms and resonance exchange for eta and eta-prime photoproduction off both the proton and neutron within U(3) baryon chiral perturbation theory is investigated. Low-lying resonances such as the vector mesons and J^P= 1/2^+, 1/2^- baryon resonances are included explicitly and their contributions together with the Born terms are calculated. The coupling constants of the resonances are determined from strong and radiative decays. We obtain reasonable agreement with experimental data near threshold.