Test of the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka Rule in<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>φ</mml:mi></mml:math>Production

Abstract

We have measured the reaction ${\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}^{+}{K}^{\ensuremath{-}}{K}^{+}{K}^{\ensuremath{-}}n$ at 22.6 GeV/c and detect strong $\ensuremath{\phi}$ signals in the ${K}^{+}{K}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ effective-mass plots. We do not observe the expected Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka-rule suppression of the $\ensuremath{\phi}\ensuremath{\phi}n$ final state and conclude that the rule is working poorly in the observed production processes.