$\eta -{\eta }^{\prime }$ Photoproduction and the Axial Isoscalar Neutral Current Coupling

Abstract

We show that coherent $\eta$ and $\text{etap}$ photoproduction by means of the Primakoff Effect on the proton depends on the strange component of the neutral axial current coupling. We construct polarization asymmetries that are sensitive to this coupling through the $\gamma -Z$ interference. The ${\eta }^{\prime }$ is not a Goldstone boson of a spontaneously broken chiral symmetry, but a phenomenological analysis of the $\eta$ and ${\eta }^{\prime }$ production through chiral perturbation theory allows to calculate the observables of interest. The polarized proton or polarized photon asymmetries are predicted to be close to $10^{-4}$ for $-q^2\sim 0.1-0.5\text{mbox}{\mathrm{GeV}}^2$.

Comments: 13 pages, 1 Postscript figure, uses fleqn,epsf style