Search for Strangeonia in Photoproduction using CLAS

The HyCLAS experiment at Jefferson Lab is a program to search for new and unusual mesons produced via photoproduction. The strangeonia sector is poorly known and a main component of this program is a search for new strangeonium states. The reaction γ p→p φ η is an ideal channel to look for strangeonium states due to the strangeness content of both the φ and η. The data was acquired at the JLAB CLAS facility using a 4–5.5 GeV tagged photon beam. The φ meson is identified via the K+K− decay. The recoil proton is observed in the CLAS spectrometer and the η meson is identified through the missing mass. Also of interest is the search for strangeonia decaying to φπ0 and φω. These channels are OZI suppressed for qq mesons and an observation of a meson decaying to these channels would provide a strong evidence of mesons beyond qqā. Preliminary results describing the data quality, kinematics and dynamics will be shown.