Flavour structure of low-energy hadron pair photoproduction

We consider the process $\gamma\gamma\to H_1\bar H_2$ where $H_1$ and $H_2$ are either mesons or baryons. The experimental findings for such quantities as the $p\bar p$ and $K_SK_S$ differential cross sections, in the energy range currently probed, are found often to be in disparity with the scaling behaviour expected from hard constituent scattering. We discuss the long-distance pole--resonance contribution in understanding the origin of these phenomena, as well as the amplitude relations governing the short-distance contribution which we model as a scaling contribution. When considering the latter, we argue that the difference found for the $K_SK_S$ and the $K^+K^-$ integrated cross sections can be attributed to the s-channel isovector component. This corresponds to the $\rho\omega\to a$ subprocess in the VMD (vector-meson-dominance) language. The ratio of the two cross sections is enhanced by the suppression of the $\phi$ component, and is hence constrained. We give similar constraints to a number of other hadron pair production channels. After writing down the scaling and pole--resonance contributions accordingly, the direct summation of the two contributions is found to reproduce some salient features of the $p\bar p$ and $K^+K^-$ data.