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Search for the $Y (2175)$ in the Photoproduction Cross Section Measurement of $γ p \to ϕ π^{+} π^{-} p$ at GlueX

F. Afzal ³, M. Albrecht ²⁹, M. Amaryan ²⁶, S. Arrigo³⁵, V. Arroyave⁹, A. Asaturyan ²⁹, A. Austregesilo ²⁹, Z. Baldwin ⁴, F. Barbosa²⁹ et al. (The GlueX Collaboration)

F. Barbosa²⁹, J. Barlow ^10,28, E. Barriga ¹⁰, R. Barsotti¹⁸, D. Barton ²⁶, V. Baturin²⁶, V. V. Berdnikov ²⁹, A. Berger ¹³, W. Boeglin ⁹, M. Boer³³, W. J. Briscoe ¹¹, T. Britton²⁹, R. Brunner ¹⁰, S. Cao¹⁰, C. Chen⁶, E. Chudakov ²⁹, G. Chung ³³, P. L. Cole ²⁰, O. Cortes¹¹, V. Crede ¹⁰, M. M. Dalton ²⁹, D. Darulis ¹³, A. Deur ²⁹, S. Dobbs ¹⁰, A. Dolgolenko ¹⁹, M. Dugger ¹, R. Dzhygadlo¹⁵, D. Ebersole ¹⁰, M. Edo⁷, H. Egiyan ²⁹, P. Eugenio ¹⁰, A. Fabrizi²¹, C. Fanelli ³⁵, S. Fang ¹⁷, M. Fritsch³, S. Furletov ²⁹, L. Gan ²⁵, H. Gao⁸, A. Gardner¹, A. Gasparian²⁴, D. I. Glazier ¹³, C. Gleason ³², K. Goetzen^15,*, B. Grube ²⁹, J. Guo ⁴, A. Hamdi^15,27, J. Hernandez ¹⁰, K. Hernandez¹, N. D. Hoffman ⁴, D. Hornidge ²³, G. M. Huber ²⁷, P. Hurck ¹³, W. Imoehl ⁴, D. G. Ireland ¹³, M. M. Ito ¹⁰, I. Jaegle ²⁹, N. S. Jarvis ⁴, T. Jeske²⁹, M. Jing¹⁷, R. T. Jones ⁷, V. Kakoyan³⁷, G. Kalicy⁵, X. Kang⁶, V. Khachatryan¹⁸, C. Kourkoumelis ², A. LaDuke ⁴, I. Larin²⁹, D. Lawrence ²⁹, D. I. Lersch ²⁹, H. Li ³⁵, B. Liu ¹⁷, K. Livingston ¹³, L. Lorenti³⁵, V. Lyubovitskij ^31,30, H. Marukyan ³⁷, V. Matveev ¹⁹, M. McCaughan ²⁹, M. McCracken ^4,34, C. A. Meyer ⁴, R. Miskimen ²¹, R. E. Mitchell ¹⁸, P. Moran³⁵, F. Nerling ^14,15,16,†, L. Ng ²⁹, E. Nissen ²⁹, S. Orešić²⁷, A. I. Ostrovidov ¹⁰, Z. Papandreou ²⁷, L. Pentchev ²⁹, K. J. Peters¹⁵, L. Puthiya Veetil²⁵, S. Rakshit ¹⁰, J. Reinhold ⁹, A. Remington ¹⁰, J. Ritman ^15,3, G. Rodriguez ¹⁰, K. Saldana ¹⁸, S. Schadmand ¹⁵, A. M. Schertz ¹⁸, K. Scheuer ³⁵, A. Schmidt ¹¹, R. A. Schumacher ⁴, J. Schwiening ¹⁵, M. Scott¹¹, N. Septian ¹⁰, P. Sharp ¹¹, V. J. Shen ³, X. Shen ¹⁷, M. R. Shepherd ¹⁸, J. Sikes¹⁸, H. Singh²⁷, A. Smith ²⁹, E. S. Smith ³⁵, A. Somov²⁹, S. Somov²², J. R. Stevens ³⁵, I. I. Strakovsky ¹¹, B. Sumner¹, K. Suresh ³⁵, V. V. Tarasov ¹⁹, S. Taylor ²⁹, A. Teymurazyan²⁷, A. Thiel ¹², M. Thomson²⁷, T. Viducic ²⁶, T. Whitlatch²⁹, Y. Wunderlich ⁷, B. Yu ⁸, J. Zarling ²⁷, Z. Zhang ³⁶, X. Zhou ³⁶, and B. Zihlmann ²⁹ (The GlueX Collaboration)

¹Polytechnic Sciences and Mathematics, School of Applied Sciences and Arts, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA
²Department of Physics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 15771 Athens, Greece
³Ruhr-Universität-Bochum, Institut für Experimentalphysik, D-44801 Bochum, Germany
⁴Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA
⁵Department of Physics, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064, USA
⁶School of Mathematics and Physics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, People’s Republic of China
⁷Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, USA
⁸Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA
⁹Department of Physics, Florida International University, Miami, Florida 33199, USA
¹⁰Department of Physics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA
¹¹Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 20052, USA
¹²Physikalisches Institut, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, D-35390 Gießen, Germany
¹³School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom
¹⁴Institut für Kernphysik, Goethe Universität Frankfurt, D-60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
¹⁵GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, D-64291 Darmstadt, Germany
¹⁶Helmholtz Forschungsakademie Hessen für FAIR (HFHF), Campus Frankfurt, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, D-64291 Darmstadt, Germany
¹⁷Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing 100049, People’s Republic of China
¹⁸Department of Physics, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA
¹⁹National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Moscow 123182, Russia
²⁰Department of Physics, Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas 77710, USA
²¹Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA
²²National Research Nuclear University Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, Moscow 115409, Russia
²³Department of Physics, Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick E4L 1E6, Canada
²⁴Department of Physics, North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, North Carolina 27411, USA
²⁵Department of Physics and Physical Oceanography, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, North Carolina 28403, USA
²⁶Department of Physics, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23529, USA
²⁷Department of Physics, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan S4S 0A2, Canada
²⁸Department of Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science, Springfield College, Springfield, Massachusetts, 01109, USA
²⁹Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, Virginia 23606, USA
³⁰Laboratory of Particle Physics, Tomsk Polytechnic University, 634050 Tomsk, Russia
³¹Department of Physics, Tomsk State University, 634050 Tomsk, Russia
³²Department of Physics and Astronomy, Union College, Schenectady, New York 12308, USA
³³Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
³⁴Department of Physics, Washington & Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania 15301, USA
³⁵Department of Physics, William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 23185, USA
³⁶School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei 430072, People’s Republic of China
³⁷A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute), 0036 Yerevan, Armenia

^*Contact author: k.goetzen@gsi.de
^†Contact author: F.Nerling@gsi.de

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 251902 – Published 23 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/jsfs-nq46

Abstract

Based on $334 {pb}^{- 1}$ of photoproduction data collected with the GlueX detector at Jefferson Lab, we have measured for the first time the cross section of the exclusive reaction $γ + p \to ϕ (1020) π^{+} π^{-} p$ by reconstructing the final state $K^{+} K^{-} π^{+} π^{-} p$ produced with a photon beam of energies between 8.0 and 11.6 GeV. Based on the measured differential cross section, we have performed a search for the strangeoniumlike exotic candidate $Y (2175)$ , recently renamed to $ϕ (2170)$ . This state has been reported by different $e^{+} e^{-}$ annihilation experiments and it is addressed here for the first time in a photoproduction experiment. We do not find evidence for this state when using the resonance parameters quoted by the Particle Data Group and provide upper limits on the photoproduction cross section. Instead, we find a structure at a mass of $m (ϕ π^{+} π^{-}) = 2.24 GeV / c^{2}$ with a statistical significance of about $5 σ$ . The parameters of this structure differ from those quoted by the Particle Data Group for the $ϕ (2170)$ and are consistent with a previous observation in $e^{+} e^{-}$ annihilation. In addition, there is evidence for a second structure at $1.82 GeV / c^{2}$ .

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 251902– Published 23 June, 2026

Vol. 136, Iss. 25 — 26 June 2026

Received 8 December 2025
Revised 13 March 2026
Accepted 23 March 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/jsfs-nq46

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP³.

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Search for the $Y (2175)$ in the Photoproduction Cross Section Measurement of $γ p \to ϕ π^{+} π^{-} p$ at GlueX

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Search for the Y(2175) in the Photoproduction Cross Section Measurement of γp→ϕπ+π−p at GlueX

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Search for the $Y (2175)$ in the Photoproduction Cross Section Measurement of $γ p \to ϕ π^{+} π^{-} p$ at GlueX