Vector Meson Photoproduction with an Effective Lagrangian in the Quark Model

A quark model approach to the photoproduction of vector mesons off nucleons is proposed. Its starting point is an effective Lagrangian of the interaction between the vector meson and the quarks inside the baryon, which generates the non-diffractive s- and u- channel resonance contributions. Additional t-channel $\pi^0$ and $\sigma$ exchanges are included for the $\omega$ and $\rho^0$ production respectively to account for the large diffractive behavior in the small $t$ region as suggested by Friman and Soyeur. The numerical results are presented for the $\omega$ and $\rho$ productions in four isospin channels with the same set of parameters, and they are in good agreement with the available data not only in $\omega$ and $\rho^0$ productions but also in the charged $\rho$ productions where the additional t-channel $\sigma$ exchange does not contribute so that it provides an important test to this approach. The investigation is also extended to the $\phi$ photoproduction, and the initial results show that the non-diffractive behavior of the $\phi$ productions in the large $t$ region can be described by the s- and u- channel contributions with significantly smaller coupling constants, which is consistent with the findings in the similar studies in the QHD framework. The numerical investigation has also shown that polarization observables are essential for identifying so-called "missing resonances".