Exclusive central diffractive production of scalar, pseudoscalar and vector mesons

Abstract

We discuss exclusive central diffractive production of scalar ($f_{0}(980)$, $f_{0}(1370)$, $f_{0}(1500)$), pseudoscalar ($η$, $η'(958)$), and vector ($ρ^{0}$) mesons in proton-proton collisions. The amplitudes are formulated in terms of effective vertices required to respect standard rules of Quantum Field Theory and propagators for the exchanged pomeron and reggeons. Different pomeron-pomeron-meson tensorial (vectorial) coupling structures are possible in general. In most cases two lowest orbital angular momentum - spin couplings are necessary to describe experimental differential distributions. For the $f_{0}(980)$ and $η$ production the reggeon-pomeron, pomeron-reggeon, and reggeon-reggeon exchanges are included in addition, which seems to be necessary at relatively low energies. The theoretical results are compared with the WA102 experimental data, in order to determine the model parameters. For the $ρ^{0}$ production the photon-pomeron and pomeron-photon exchanges are considered. The coupling parameters of tensor pomeron and/or reggeon are fixed from the H1 and ZEUS experimental data of the $γp \to ρ^{0} p$ reaction. We present first predictions of this mechanism for $pp \to pp π^{+} π^{-}$ reaction being studied at COMPASS, RHIC, Tevatron, and LHC. Correlation in azimuthal angle between outgoing protons and distribution in pion rapidities at $\sqrt{s} = 7$TeV are presented. We show that high-energy central production of mesons could provide crucial information on the spin structure of the soft pomeron.