Upper limits for the photoproduction cross section for the Phi--(1860) pentaquark state off the deuteron

We searched for the Phi--(1860) pentaquark in the photoproduction process off the deuteron in the Xi- pi- decay channel using CLAS. The invariant mass spectrum of the Xi- pi- system does not indicate any statistically significant enhancement near the reported mass M = 1.860 GeV. The statistical analysis of the sideband-subtracted mass spectrum yields a 90% confidence level upper limit of 0.7 nb for the photoproduction cross section of Phi--(1860) with a consecutive decay into Xi- pi- in the photon energy range 4.5 GeV < Egamma < 5.5 GeV.