  We study the photoproduction of phi mesons in deuteron, paying attention to
the modification of the cross section from bound protons to the free ones with
the aim of comparing with recent results at LEPS. For this purpose we take into
account Fermi motion in single scattering and rescattering of the phi to
account for phi absorption on a second nucleon as well as the rescattering of
the proton. We find that the contribution of the double scattering is much
smaller than the typical cross section of gamma p to phi p in free space, which
implies a very small screening of the phi production in deuteron. The
contribution from the proton rescattering, on the other hand, is found to be
not negligible compared to the cross section of gamma p to phi p in free space,
and leads to a moderate reduction of the phi photoproduction cross section on a
deuteron at forward angles if LEPS set up is taken into account. The Fermi
motion allows contribution of the single scattering in regions forbidden by
phase space in the free case. In particular, we find that for momentum
transferred squared close to the maximum value, the Fermi motion changes
drastically the shape of d sigma / dt, to the point that the ratio of this
cross section to the free one becomes very sensitive to the precise value of t
chosen, or the size of the bin used in an experimental analysis. Hence, this
particular region of t does not seem the most indicated to find effects of a
possible phi absorption in the deuteron. This reaction is studied theoretically
as a function of t and the effect of the experimental angular cuts at LEPS is
also discussed, providing guidelines for future experimental analyses of the
reaction.

Nuclear Theory