Browsing by Author "Pisano, S."

The CLAS detector was used to obtain the first ever measurement of the electromagnetic decay of the Σ*⁺(1385) from the reaction γp → K⁰Σ*⁺(1385). A real photon beam with a maximum energy of 3.8 GeV was incident on a liquid-hydrogen target, resulting in the photoproduction of the kaon and Σ* hyperon. Kinematic fitting was used to separate the reaction channel from the background processes. The fitting algorithm exploited a new method to kinematically fit neutrons in the CLAS detector, leading to the measured decay widths ratio: Γ(Σ⁺(1385) → Σ⁺γ) / Γ(Σ⁺(1385) → Σ⁺π⁰) = 11.95 ± 2.21 (stat) ⁺⁰.⁵³₋₁.₂₁ (sys) % and a deduced partial width of: Γ(Σ⁺(1385) → Σ⁺γ) = 250.0 ± 56.9 (stat) ⁺³⁴.³₋₄₁.² (sys) keV A U-spin symmetry test using the SU(3) flavor-multiplet representation yields predictions for the Σ*⁺(1385) → Σ⁺γ and Σ*⁰(1385) → Λγ partial widths that agree with the experimental measurements.

A measurement of the electroproduction of photons off protons in the deeply inelastic regime was performed at Jefferson Lab using a nearly 6 GeV electron beam, a longitudinally polarized proton target, and the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer. Target-spin asymmetries for ep → e0 p0 γ events, which arise from the interference of the deeply virtual Compton scattering and the Bethe-Heitler processes, were extracted over the widest kinematics in Q2, xB, t, and ϕ, for 166 four-dimensional bins. In the framework of generalized parton distributions, at leading twist the t dependence of these asymmetries provides insight into the spatial distribution of the axial charge of the proton, which appears to be concentrated in its center. These results also bring important and necessary constraints for the existing parametrizations of chiral-even generalized parton distributions.

We present a search for ten baryon-number violating decay modes of Λ hyperons using the CLAS detector at Jefferson Laboratory. Nine of these decay modes result in a single meson and single lepton in the final state (Λ → m`) and conserve either the sum or the difference of baryon and lepton number (B ±L). The tenth decay mode (Λ → pπ¯ +) represents a difference in baryon number of two units and no difference in lepton number. We observe no significant signal and set upper limits on the branching fractions of these reactions in the range (4 − 200) × 10−7 at the 90% confidence level.