Selected vector-meson decay-distributions in reactions of polarized photons with protons

Abstract

We develop a formalism for studying vector meson ($V$) photo-production at the proton ($p$) with polarized photons, $\vec{\gamma }p\to Vp$, through an analysis of the decay distribution in the channel $V\to {\pi }^0\gamma$. We show that this decay distribution differs noticeably from the distributions of purely hadronic decays, like $\varphi \to K^{+}{K}^{-}$, $\omega \to {\pi }^0{\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}$. Formulas for the decay distributions are presented which are suitable for data analysis and interpretation.

Comments: 3 pages, 2 figures