Near-Threshold Production Of The Eta Meson Via The Quasifree Pn -> Pn Eta Reaction

Total cross sections for the quasifree pn -> pn eta reaction in the range from the kinematical threshold up to 20 MeV excess energy have been determined. At threshold they exceed corresponding cross sections for the pn -> pn eta reaction by a factor of about 3 in contrast to the factor of 6 established for higher excess energies. To large extent, the observed decrease of the ratio s(pn -> pn eta)/s=sigma(pn -> pn eta) toward threshold may be assigned to the different energy dependence of the proton-proton and proton-neutron final-state interactions. The experiment was conducted using a proton beam of the cooler synchrotron COSY and a cluster jet deuteron target. The proton- neutron reactions were tagged by the spectator proton whose momentum was measured for each event. Protons and neutron outgoing from the pn -> pn eta reaction have been registered by means of the COSY-11 facility, an apparatus dedicated for threshold meson production.