Hadronic interaction of eta and eta-prime mesons with protons

We present results of investigations aiming to determine the hadronic interaction of eta and eta-prime mesons with nucleons. Inferences are based on comparisons of both the differential cross sections and the close-to-threshold excitation functions for the p p --> p p eta and p p --> p p eta-prime reactions with predictions based on the assumption that the kinematically available phase space is homogeneously populated. We discuss the phenomenology of the initial and final state interaction, relevance of the hadronic and quark-gluon degrees of freedom for the reaction dynamics, and explain in detail the experimental techniques used for the measurement of the meson production in free and quasi-free collisions of nucleons.