Meson and hyperon production results from the DISTO spectrometer at SATURNE

The production of eta, eta', omega, phi, mesons, as well as Lambda and Sigma hyperons has been measured in proton-proton reactions with an incident beam momentum of 3.67 GeV/c with DISTO spectrometer at SATURNE. The first observation of the phi meson near the production threshold and the phi/omega cross sections ratio has been compared to predictions based on the OZI rule and on one-boson-exchange models. Measured inclusive cross section for K- mesons production is about a factor of 20 lower than for inlcusive K+ production at the same CM energy above threshold. This fact is in strong contrast to cross sections observed in sub-threshold heavy ion collisions. The production of eta and eta' masons has also been measured, in an effort to gain information on the eta'-nucleon coupling. The normal spin transfer coefficient (D-N N) has been determined for exclusive hyperon production with a polarized beam. A large negative coefficient has been observed, which is qualitatively consistent with expectations for a mechanism dominated by kaon-exchange and rescattering.