Searching for Exotic Mesons in e^+e^- Annihilation at Dafne

Abstract

$DAΦNE$ should be useful for testing the nature of the vector mesons directly produced in $e^-e^+$ annihilation, as well as the nature of the $C=+$ states produced in the radiative decays of these vector mesons. In the $DAΦNE$ energy range, these latter states may have spin up to two and any parity. Provided the background can be handled and the spin of the produced state is known, the study of the angular distributions in these decays can measure the parity of the produced meson as well as the ratios of the independent production helicity amplitudes. These ratios provide sensitive tests for quark model classification of the states, in particular the enigmatic $f_1(1420)$. Thus, they can be used to indicate whether the mesons involved are consistent with the usual $q \bar q$ interpretation, or whether other interpretations like \eg\,hybrid, glueball or multiquark, are more favorable for some of them.