Coherent eta photoproduction from nuclei in a relativistic impulse approximation approach

We study coherent {eta} photoproduction from nuclei in a relativistic impulse approximation approach. For the elementary production amplitude we use a standard relativistic parametrization based on a set of four Lorentz- and gauge-invariant amplitudes. The photonuclear amplitude is evaluated without recourse to a nonrelativistic reduction; the full relativistic structure of the amplitude is maintained. On general arguments we show that the coherent process is sensitive to only one of the elementary amplitudes. Moreover, we show that the nuclear structure information is fully contained in the ground-state tensor density. The tensor density is evaluated in a mean-field approximation to the Walecka model and it is shown to be sensitive to relativistic effects. Distortion effects are incorporated through an {eta}-nucleus optical potential that is computed in a simple {open_quotes}t{rho}{close_quotes} approximation. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}