Date of Completion

8-21-2020

Embargo Period

8-30-2020

Keywords

vector phi meson beam spin asymmetry BSA CLAS12 JLAB

Major Advisor

Kyungseon Joo

Associate Advisor

Francois-Xavier Girod

Associate Advisor

Andrew J. Puckett

Field of Study

Physics

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Open Access

Open Access

Abstract

Measurements of the beam spin asymmetry (BSA) of the exclusive electroproduction of the vector phi(1020) meson through its decay into charged Kaons have been performed. The data set used was based on the RG-A run period from the recently upgraded CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS12) in Hall B at Jefferson National Lab (JLab). The run period used a 10.6 GeV longitudinally polarized electron beam and an unpolarized hydrogen target. The available statistics collected allow for detailed studies of the W, -t, xB, and Q2 dependencies of the BSA amplitudes from phi production. The BSA measurements will shed light on the exchange mechanisms responsible for phi production at JLab energies. In this dissertation, a non-zero BSA is observed, which suggests a possible enhancement of pseudo-scalar exchange mechanism near production threshold. Therefore, the non-zero BSA may be a result of the interference of the pseudo-scalar exchange mechanism with a scalar one. Ultimately, information on the dominant exchange mechanism will aid in the development of a Generalized Parton Distribution (GPD) based description of these processes in the context of hard to soft transition.

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