Near threshold photoproduction of eta mesons off the proton.

We have measured precise total and differential cross sections for the reaction $\ensuremath{\gamma}p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}p\ensuremath{\eta}$ from threshold to 790 MeV at the MAMI accelerator in Mainz with the neutral meson spectrometer TAPS. Resonance parameters of the ${S}_{11}$(1535) resonance and the electromagnetic coupling $\ensuremath{\gamma}p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{S}_{11}$ have been extracted from the data. Contributions from the ${D}_{13}$(1520) resonance to $\ensuremath{\eta}$ photoproduction in the threshold region have been identified for the first time via interference terms in the angular distributions.

Krusche et al. reply.

Mass and Γ3π0/Γγγ decay branching ratio of theη-meson from the p(γ, η)p reaction

Near threshold photoproduction ofη-mesons from the proton has been measured at the MAMI accelerator with the TAPS spectrometer. The mass of theη-meson was deduced from the threshold energy forη-photoproduction. The result of m η =(547.12 ± 0.06 ± 0.25) MeV supports the low value of theη-mass reported from a dp →3Heη measurement at SATURNE in 1992. Theη-decay branching ratio Γ3π0/Γγγ was measured to be (0.832±0.005±0.012).