Photoproduction of quasi-bound omega mesons in nuclei

Abstract

We propose the (gamma,p) reaction as a means of producing possible quasi-bound states of omega mesons in nuclei. We use an effective Lagrangian, based on chiral SU(3) symmetry and vector meson dominance, in order to construct the omega-nuclear potential. The contribution of bound omega states is observable in the missing energy spectra of protons emitted in forward direction for several nuclei.