Eta-prime Meson Research Articles

Monopoles, spectra of overlap fermions, and eta-prime meson in external magnetic fields

Monopoles, spectra of overlap fermions, and eta-prime meson in external magnetic fields

η′ and η mesons with connection to anomalous glue

We review the present understanding of etaprime and eta meson physics and these mesons as a probe of gluon dynamics in low-energy QCD. Recent highlights include the production mechanism of eta and etaprime mesons in proton-nucleon collisions from threshold to high-energy, the etaprime effective mass shift in the nuclear medium, searches for possible eta and etaprime bound states in nuclei as well as precision measurements of eta decays as a probe of light-quark masses. We discuss recent experimental data, theoretical interpretation of the different measurements and the open questions and challenges for future investigation.

$\eta '$ Interactions with Nucleons and Nuclei

We summarise recent progress in theory and experiment towards understanding etaprime meson interactions with nucleons and nuclei. Highlights include the production mechanism of etaprime mesons in proton-proton collisions close to threshold, the etaprime effective mass shift in nuclei and the determination of the etaprime-nucleon scattering length in free space.

η′meson mass from topological charge density correlator in QCD

The flavor-singlet component of the eta prime meson is related to the topological structure of the SU(3) gauge field through the chiral anomaly. We perform a 2+1-flavor lattice QCD calculation and demonstrate that the two-point function of a gluonically defined topological charge density after a short Yang-Mills gradient flow contains the propagation of the eta prime meson, by showing that its mass in the chiral and continuum limit is consistent with the experimental value. The gluonic correlator does not suffer from the contamination of the pion contribution, and the clean signal is obtained at significantly lower numerical cost compared to the conventional method with the quark bilinear operators.

QCD symmetries and the η and η ′ in nuclei

We discuss the role of QCD symmetries in understanding the eta and etaprime mesons in nuclear media. Recent results on the etaprime mass in nuclei from the CBELSA/TAPS collaboration are very similar to the prediction of the Quark Meson Coupling model.

Aspects of Anomalous Glue

Non-perturbative glue associated with gluon topology plays a vital role in determining the mass of the etaprime meson. We give an introduction to axial U(1) physics and explain how this non-perturbative glue also contributes to etaprime interactions with other hadrons. We concentrate on resonant etaprime pi production in partial waves with exotic quantum numbers not compatible with a quark-antiquark state and on the etaprime in nuclear media where there are new results from the COMPASS and CBELSA/TAPS experiments respectively.

Electromagnetic transitions in an effective chiral Lagrangian with the $ \eta^{{\prime}}_{}$ and light vector mesons

We consider the chiral Lagrangian with a nonet of Goldstone bosons and a nonet of light vector mesons. The mixing between the pseudoscalar mesons eta and eta-prime is taken into account. A novel counting scheme is suggested that is based on hadrogenesis, which conjectures a mass gap in the meson spectrum of QCD in the limit of a large number of colors. Such a mass gap would justify to consider the vector mesons and the eta-prime meson as light degrees of freedom. The complete leading order Lagrangian is constructed and discussed. As a first application it is tested against electromagnetic transitions of light vector mesons to pseudoscalar mesons. Our parameters are determined by the experimental data on photon decays of the omega, phi and eta-prime meson. In terms of such parameters we predict the corresponding decays into virtual photons with either dielectrons or dimuons in the final state.

Two-photon form factors of theπ0,η, andη′mesons in the chiral theory with resonances

We have developed a phenomenological approach which describes very well the pi0, eta and eta-prime meson production in the two-photon interactions. The simultaneous description of the pi0, eta and eta-prime meson two-photon form factors is consistent with data in the space-like region. The obtained form factors are implemented in the event generator EKHARA and the simulated cross sections are presented. Uncertainties in the measured form factors coming from the model dependence in Monte Carlo simulations are studied. The model predictions for the form factor slopes at the origin are given and the high-Q2 limit is also discussed.

EKHARA — new gamma gamma generator

The Monte Carlo generator EKHARA allows to simulate the process (e+e- to e+e-pi0) at energies of meson factories. We review the motivation, describe the current status of the generator, and discuss features, which will appear in the forthcoming releases: the two-photon production of eta and eta-prime mesons.

Search for radiative decays ofΥ(1S)intoηandη′

We report on a search for the radiative decay of Upsilon(1S) to the pseudoscalar mesons eta and etaprime in 21.2 +/- 0.2 times 10^6 Upsilon(1S) decays collected with the CLEO III detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR). The eta meson was reconstructed in the three modes eta to gamma-gamma, eta to pi+pi-pi0 and eta to 3pi0. The etaprime meson was reconstructed in the mode etaprime to pi+ pi- eta with eta decaying through any of the above three modes, and also etaprime to gamma rho, where rho decays to pi^+ pi^-. Five out of the seven sub-modes are found to be virtually background-free. In four of them we find no signal candidates and in one Upsilon(1S) to gamma-etaprime, etaprime to pi+ pi- eta, eta to pi+pi-pi0 there are two good signal candidates, which is insufficient evidence to claim a signal. The other two sub-modes eta to gamma-gamma and etaprime to gamma rho are background limited, and show no excess of events in their signal regions. We combine the results from different channels and obtain upper limits at the 90% C.L. which are B(Upsilon(1S) to gamma eta) < 1.0 times 10^-6 and B(Upsilon(1S) to gamma etaprime) < 1.9 times 10^-6. Our limits are an order of magnitude tighter than the previous ones and below the predictions made by some theoretical models.

Flavor singlet meson mass in the continuum limit in two-flavor lattice QCD

We present results for the mass of the eta-prime meson in the continuum limit for two-flavor lattice QCD, calculated on the CP-PACS computer, using a renormalization-group improved gauge action, and Sheikholeslami and Wohlert's fermion action with tadpole-improved csw. Correlation functions are measured at three values of the coupling constant beta corresponding to the lattice spacing a approx. 0.22, 0.16, 0.11 fm and for four values of the quark mass parameter kappa corresponding to mpi over mrho approx. 0.8, 0.75, 0.7 and 0.6. For each beta, kappa pair, 400-800 gauge configurations are used. The two-loop diagrams are evaluated using a noisy source method. We calculate eta-prime propagators using local sources, and find that excited state contributions are much reduced by smearing. A full analysis for the smeared propagators gives metaprime=0.960(87)+0.036-0.248 GeV, in the continuum limit, where the second error represents the systematic uncertainty coming from varying the functional form for chiral and continuum extrapolations.

Eta physics at threshold

The production of eta and eta-prime mesons in elementary nucleon-nucleon collisions has been investigated at the synchrotrons CELSIUS, COSY and SATURNE. The magnitude and energy dependence of the total cross section as well as the occupation distribution of the phase space serve as observables for investigating the mechanisms underlying the production processes and the interaction of mesons with nucleons. The precise data on the eta and eta-prime creation via the pp --> pp eta(eta-prime) reactions allowed to settle the general features of the eta and eta-prime meson production and revealed the sensitivity of the mentioned observables to the nucleon-nucleon-meson final state interaction. The particular production properties, like for example the determination of the dominating exchange processes which lead to the excitation of the S_11 nucleon isobar in the case of eta creation, must be established by confrontation with other observables. The present status of this investigation with an emphasis on the results of the COSY-11 collaboration is briefly presented. The available data are interpreted in view of the production mechanism and the meson-nucleon interaction.

Witten-Veneziano relation, quenched QCD, and overlap fermions

The quarks in quenched QCD have an anomalous self-interaction in the flavor singlet Goldstone boson channel. This coupling is extracted from a graph with disconnected quark lines, and is used to infer the mass of the eta-prime meson in full QCD. When the fermions are described by an overlap action, the Witten-Veneziano relation is an exact relation between the topological susceptibility (as defined through fermionic zero modes) and the inferred value of the eta-prime mass. Using an overlap action we compute the hairpin amplitude and determine the fermion zero-mode susceptibility, the inferred eta-prime mass and other parameters characterizing the low energy chiral properties of quenched QCD.

Electromagnetic Production of η and η' Mesons

The production of eta (η) and eta-prime (η') mesons on free and bound nucleons by electromagnetic probes, i.e. real and virtual photons, is an old but very active and viable field of research. A brief summary of the present status and knowledge with a detailed reference list is given.

Search for rare and forbidden eta(') decays

We have searched for rare and forbidden decays of the eta(') meson in hadronic events at the CLEO II detector. The search is conducted on 4.80 fb(-1) of e(+)e(-) collisions at 10.6 GeV center-of-mass energy at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring. We find no signals, and set 90% confidence level upper limits of their branching fractions: B(eta(')-->e(+)e(-)eta)<2.4x10(-3), B(eta(')-->e(+)e(-)pi(0))<1. 4x10(-3), B(eta(')-->e(+)e(-)gamma)<0.9x10(-3), and B(eta(')-->e&mgr;)<4.7x10(-4). We also fit the matrix element of the eta(')-->pi(+)pi(-)eta Dalitz plot with the parametrization |M|(2) = A|1+alphay|(2), where y is a linear function of the kinetic energy of the eta, and find Re (alpha) = -0.021+/-0.025.

η′q¯q and η′NN vertex suppression in effective theories

In an effective theory containing only quark degrees of freedom, such as the extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model, the influence of the axial anomaly can be incorporated by a self-interaction of the 't Hooft determinant type. I will show that despite the theshold problem related to the eta-prime meson this leads to a significant suppression of the eta-prime coupling g_{\eta' q \bar{q}} to dynamical quarks which suggests a suppression of the eta-prime-NN vertex as compared to the eta-NN vertex.

Note on the mass square of the eta′ meson

We propose to use as a mathematical tool to study the mass square of the etaprime meson an infinitely heavy supplementary quark flavor Q. This is understood in the framework of QCD with one light quark flavor (or n_fl light flavors) and the gauge group SU3 colour (or SUN colour). The full system thus consists of n_fl + 1 flavors, including the infinitely heavy one. The purpose of this note is to show how the heavy flavor can be made to represent the anomalies of the subtheory describing the remnant physical degrees of freedom. In the large N_c limit the mass square of etaprime tends to a finite limit. The essential deviations from (semi) perturbative derivations are related to simple properties of the 'heavy' flavor.

The η′ and cooling with staggered fermions

We present a calculation of the mass of the eta-prime meson using quenched and dynamical staggered fermions. We also discuss the effects of "cooling" and suggest its use as a quantitative tool.