A covariant OBE model for η production in NN collisions

A relativistic covariant one boson exchange model, previously applied to describe elastic nucleon-nucleon scattering, is extended to study eta production in NN collisions. The transition amplitudes for the elementary BN --> eta N processes with B being the meson exchanged (B = pi, sigma, eta, rho, omega and delta) are taken to be the sum of four terms corresponding to s and u-channels with a nucleon or a nucleon isobar N* (1535 MeV) in the intermediate states. Taking the relative phases of the various exchange amplitudes to be +1, the model reproduces the cross sections for the NN --> X eta reactions in a consistent manner. In the limit where all eta's are produced via N* excitations, interference terms between the overall contribution from the exchange of pseudoscalar and scalar mesons with that of vector mesons cancel out. Consequently, much of the ambiguities in the model predictions due to unknown relative phases of different vector and pseudoscalar exchanges are strongly reduced. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.