Abstract. Quasi-free photoproduction of η -mesons off nucleons bound in the deuteron has been measured with the combined Crystal Barrel -TAPS detector. The experiment was done at a tagged photon beam of the ELSA electron accelerator in Bonn for incident photon energies from the production threshold up to 2.5 GeV. The η -mesons have been detected in coincidence with recoil protons and recoil neutrons. The quasi-free proton data are in good agreement with the results for free protons, indicating that nuclear effects have no significant impact. The coincidence with recoil neutrons provides the first data for the γn → nη reaction. In addition, also first estimates for coherent η -production off the deuteron have been obtained. In agreement with model predictions, the total cross-section for this channel is found to be very small, at most at the level of a few nb. The data are compared to model calculations taking into account contributions from nucleon resonances and t-channel exchanges.

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The photoproduction of ω mesons on nuclei has been investigated using the Crystal Barrel/TAPS experiment at the ELSA tagged photon facility in Bonn. The aim is to study possible in-medium modifications of the ω meson via the reaction γ + A → ω + X → π 0 γ + X ′ . Results obtained for Nb are compared to a reference measurement on a LH2 target. While for recoiling, long-lived mesons (π 0 , η and η ′ ), which decay outside of the nucleus, a difference in the lineshape for the two data samples is not observed, we find a significant enhancement towards lower masses for ω mesons produced on the Nb target. For momenta less than 500 MeV/c an in-medium ω meson mass of M medium = [722 +2 −2 (stat) +35 −5 (syst)] MeV/c 2 has been deduced at an estimated average nuclear density of 0.6 ρ0.

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