Scalar Meson f₀(980) Photoproduction in γp→pf₀(980) Reaction

We study the scalar meson f₀(980) in the γp→pf₀(980) reaction within an effective Lagrangian approach. Based on previous studies, we calculate the differential cross sections of this reaction. We take two types of the propagators of vector mesons ρ and ω, one is the Regge form, the other one is the normal Feynman propagator. It is found that our theoretical results for the differential cross sections with the Feynman propagator are in agreement with the current experimental data. For the total cross sections, the results with the two types of propagator are much different. On the other hand, we predict the π⁺π^- invariant mass distribution of the γp→pf₀(980)→pπ⁺π^- reaction. We find that the π⁺π^- invariant mass distribution depends sensitively on the value of the coupling constant g_f0KK. We hope that the future experiments can test our model calculation and give further constraints on the value of g_f0KK and also the nature of f₀(980).