Abstract

We report the first measurement of the photoproduction cross section of the phi meson in its neutral decay mode in the reaction gamma p -> p phi(KSKL). The experiment was performed with a tagged photon beam of energy 1.6 <= E-gamma <= 3.6 GeV incident on a liquid hydrogen target of the CLAS spectrometer at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The p phi final state is identified via reconstruction of K-S in the invariant mass of two oppositely charged pions and by requiring the missing particle in the reaction gamma p -> pK(S)X to be K-L. The presented results significantly enlarge the existing data on phi photoproduction. These data, combined with the data from the charged decay mode, will help to constrain different mechanisms of phi photoproduction.