Photoproduction of pentaquark cascades from nucleons

Abstract

The cross sections for production of the pentaquark baryon Xi(5)(+) from the reaction gammap-->K(0)K(0)Xi(5)(+) and of Xi(5)(--) from the reaction gamman-->K(+)K(+)Xi(5)(--) are evaluated in a hadronic model that includes their couplings to both Sigma(K) over bar and Sigma(K) over bar*. Values for these coupling constants are determined from the empirical piNN(1710) and rhoNN(1710) coupling constants by assuming that Xi(5)(+), Xi(5)(--), and N(1710) belong to the same antidecuplet of spin 1/2 and positive parity as the pentaquark Theta(+). Introducing empirical form factors at strong interaction vertices, we obtain a cross section of about 0.03-0.6 nb for the reaction gammap-->K(0)K(0)Xi(5)(+) and about 0.1-0.6 nb for the reaction gamman-->K(+)K(+)Xi(5)(--) at photon energy E-gamma=4.5 GeV, depending on the value of the coupling constant g(K*SigmaXi 5).