Analysis of three body decays in quasi-real photoproduction

Wishart, Robert (2023) Analysis of three body decays in quasi-real photoproduction. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis presents preliminary measurements of the moments of angular distribution for the K∗K + mesonic final state using a quasi-real, linearly polarised photon.

Two of the main points of focus for this analysis were the development of the formalism for photoproduced vector-pseudoscalar decay and the tools by which the analysis was carried out. The formalism described how the moments of angular distribution could be extracted from the angular decay variables, and how they related to resonance decays in terms of partial waves. In extracting the moments, it was found that adapted Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods proved to be more effective in terms of extracting results from the data compared to the sole use of gradient descent based fitting algorithms.

These measurements are complementary to other decay channels and production mechanisms, with the global aim of probing the existence of exotic mesons. Data from this analysis was taken by the CLAS collaboration at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab) by scattering from a liquid hydrogen target using a 10.6 GeV electron. This work was done within the MesonEx program at CLAS12 that aims to map the spectrum of mesons, and in doing so, gain a greater understanding of Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) and the strong force.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: Q Science > QC Physics
• Colleges/Schools: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Supervisor's Name: Ireland, Professor David
• Date of Award: 2023
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2023-83741
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 27 Jul 2023 08:57
• Last Modified: 27 Jul 2023 09:00
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.83741
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/83741