Eta meson production in nucleon-nucleon collisions within an effective Lagrangian model

We investigate the pp --> pp eta and pn --> pn eta reactions within an effective Lagrangian model for laboratory kinetic energies ranging from very close to eta meson production threshold to about 10 GeV. Production amplitudes include contributions from the mechanism of excitation, propagation and decay of N*(1535), N*(1650), and N*(1710) baryonic resonances. The initial interaction between two incoming nucleons is modeled by the exchange of pi, rho, omega and sigma mesons where the vertex parameters are taken to be the same as those used in the previous applications of this model. Parameters of the resonance vertices also have been taken from our earlier studies wherever applicable. Calculations have been done for total as well as differential eta production cross sections. To describe the data for energies closer to the production threshold final state interactions among the out-going particles have been included by means of a generalized Watson-Migdal method. Terms corresponding to the excitation of N*(1535) resonance and pion exchange process dominate the cross sections. With a single set of vertex parameters our model is able to describe the available data well on total cross sections for beam energies ranging from close to threshold to upto 10 GeV.