Anaysis of high energy K+K- photoproduction on hydrogen

Abstract

We have analyzed the K+K- photoproduction on hydrogen in the effective mass region around the mass of the phi(1020) meson. The interference of the S-wave contribution with the P-wave has been studied. Both scalar resonances f0(980) and a0(980) have been taken into account. We have obtained a good description of the available experimental data, in particular the mass distributions and the moments of the kaon angular distribution. Our calculations give values of the integrated S-wave total photoproduction cross section between 4 and 7 nb for the K+K- effective mass range around the phi(1020) mass and at the laboratory photon energy near 5 GeV. These numbers favor lower experimental estimates obtained at DESY.