Search for Excited Cascade Hyperons (Ξ*-) using the CLAS12 Spectrometer at Jefferson Laboratory

The number of experimentally observed doubly strange Cascade states to date is far fewer than has been predicted theoretically. The CLAS12 Very Strange physics program (E12 − 11 − 005A) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility aims to study the electroproduction of these states using the newly upgraded CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer for 12 GeV (CLAS12) in experimental Hall B. In this project, the reaction ep → e′K⁺K⁺Ξ^*-→ e′K⁺K⁺K^-(Λ/Σ⁰) is studied using CLAS12 Run Group A (RG-A) data sets taken by impinging electron beams of 10.2 and 10.6 GeV energies on an LH2 target. Scattered electrons are detected with either the Forward Detector (FD), covering a polar angle range of 5^o to 35^o to study electroproduction, or with the Forward Tagger (FT), covering a polar angle range of 2.5^o to 4.5^o, to study quasi-real photoproduction. The CLAS12 detector with nearly a 4π solid angle coverage is used to detect scattered electrons and charged kaons in the final state. Λ/Σ⁰ hyperons are reconstructed using the missing mass technique to explore intermediate doubly-strange hyperons (Ξ^*-) that decay to K^- and Λ/Σ⁰. No statistically significant Ξ^*- states other than the Ξ^*-(1530) were found in the missing mass spectra based on the currently available statistics in the CLAS12-FD acceptance only. A maximum log-likelihood method is implemented to determine the statistical significance and the upper limits on the Ξ^*-(1820) electroproduction cross section by constructing 95% confidence level boundaries on the Ξ^*-(1820) yields. Additional research was conducted to investigate the upper limit electroproduction cross section of the reaction ep → e′K⁺K⁺Ξ^*-→ e′K⁺K⁺K^-(Λ/Σ⁰) as a function of the electroproduced Ξ^*- mass and the differential cross section ( dσ/dMM(e′K⁺K⁺)) as a function of missing mass MM(e′K⁺K⁺) for electroproduction and quasi-real photoproduction processes.