rho/sup 0/. omega. production in photon photon interactions

Abstract

The subject of this dissertation is the production of the p°u final state in photon photon interactions. The production of the p°u final state has been of interest primarily because of its similarity to the related process 77-> p a p°. The cross section for p°p° production demonstrates a peaking near threshold, the mecha nism of which has been the subject of considerable speculation. The data sample used for the analysis was obtained using the TPC detector facility at the PEP e + e~ storage ring and corresponds to an integrated e + e" luminosity of 64 pb-1 at 29 GeV center of mass energy. Our estimate of the p°u cross section is com pared to the predictions of several models which have been used to account for the observed p°p° cross section. The experimental results are consistent with the predictions of a threshold enhancement model as well as those of a four quark (qqqq) resonance model. However, they disagree with the predictions of a t-channel factorization approach.