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Published: 1987

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The subject of this dissertation is the production of the rho°.omega. final state in photon photon interactions. The production of the rho°.omega. final state has been of interest primarily because of its similarity to the related process .gamma gamma. .-->. rho°rho°. The cross section for rho°rho° production demonstrates a peaking near threshold, the mechanism of which has been the subject of considerable speculation. The data sample used for the analysis was obtained using the TPC detector facility at the PEP ee− storage ring, and corresponds to an integrated ee− luminosity of 64 pb−1 at 29 GeV center of mass energy. Our estimate of the rho°.omega. cross section is compared to the predictions of several models which have been used to account for the observed rho°rho° cross section. The experimental results are consistent with the predictions of a threshold enhancement model, as well as those of a four quark (qq anti q anti q) resonance model. However, they disagree with the predictions of a t-channel factorization approach.