Photoproduction of Cascade Baryons Using the GlueX Detector at Jefferson Laboratory

Multi-strange baryons have played an important role in understanding the strong interaction. Despite their importance to advancing quantum chromodynamics (QCD), little is known about such hyperons due to the lack of a strange probe. Almost all knowledge of Cascade baryons today stems from kaon-nucleon interactions in bubble chamber experiments performed in the 1960s and 1970s. The 1980s saw advancement in electronics and computational resources allowing for higher statistic experiments such as the MultiParticle Spectrometer (MPS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. From these previous experiments, the octet and decuplet ground states, $\Xi(1320)$ and $\Xi(1530)$ respectively, were well established with known properties and four excited states were well established. This research uses the GlueX experiment at Jefferson Laboratory to extend photoproduction cross section measurements for $\Xi(1320)^-$ to higher beam energies to further understand the production mechanism, as well as to search for the first excited Cascade resonance observation in photoproduction through the decay $\Xi^{-*}\to K^-\Lambda$. The GlueX Spectrometer is a nearly hermetic detector used to study exclusive photoproduction reactions with photon beam energies up to $12$~GeV. The first phase of GlueX running has recently been completed. Preliminary results for the total cross section and differential cross sections in terms of momentum transfer $-t$ are shown within. Additionally, the first observation of an excited Cascade baryon, in particular $\Xi(1820)^-$, is shown.