Strangeness Production at GlueX

Abstract

The GlueX experiment at Jefferson Lab is well suited for exclusive studies of strangeness production, combining a linearly polarized photon beam at $8.0<E_\gamma<8.8$ GeV with a large-acceptance detector that reconstructs weakly decaying hyperons. We outline a research program built on three aspects: (i) spectroscopy of strange mesons, where many excited $K^*$ states remain unestablished and crypto-exotic strange hybrids must be identified from combined spectrum and decay information, anchored by the $K^*(892)$ as a standard candle; (ii) spin dynamics, where the first precise measurements of the complete spin-density matrix elements in the photoproduced $K^*(892)\Lambda$ system beyond the Schilling formalism constrain the $t$-channel strange production mechanism; and (iii) hadronization, probed through the newly published $p\bar{p}$, $\Lambda\bar{\Lambda}$, and $p\bar{\Lambda}$ photoproduction cross sections and emerging $\Lambda\bar{\Lambda}$ spin-correlation measurements. We place these efforts in the context of the broader GlueX strangeness program and give an outlook toward the high-statistics GlueX-II era.