η′ photoproduction near threshold -: art. no. 035205

In this work, the eta' meson photoproduction near threshold is studied in the quark model framework;. A pseudovector effective Lagrangian is introduced for the eta 'NN coupling and the newly published data from the SAPHIR Collaboration provide good constraints to this parameter. Corrections of order O(1/m(q)(2)) for the electromagnetic interaction vertex are taken into account, which produce corrections of order O(1/m(q)(3)) to the transition amplitude for gammap --> eta 'p Some low-lying resonances, S-11(1535), P-13(1720), and P-13(1900), are found to have significant contributions. A bump structure around E-y approximate to 2 GeV is found arising from the n =3 terms in the harmonic oscillator basis. The beam polarization asymmetries are predicted and can be tested against the forthcoming data from GRAAL.