[Clascomment] OPT-IN: Subthreshold photoproduction of phi mesons from deuterium

[Reinhard Schumacher]

                                                 10-21-10
Dear Xi and Haiyan et al,

Your revised paper \"Naer-threshold....Deuterium\" is a great
improvement over the previous draft from last spring.  It is much more
focused on what you have done as experimentalists, and presents the
results in a reasonable framework without exaggerations.  Also, I like
that you are more accurate with language, such as retitling the paper
\"Near-threshold\" instead of \"Subthreshold\", for example.

My main new complaint is that the cross section results (Figure 3) are
nearly a factor of 2 bigger than in the previous version of this paper
(Figure 4). Wow, what happened!?  Why should I believe this result
more than the previous result?  Where is the technical discussion
between you and the review committee documented?  I tried to find it
on the analysis page you have, but I was unable to find a discussion
of specifically this point.  There was mention of a \"bin centering
correction\", but not something about the size of the cross section (at
least not that I could find).  Also, the theory curve is totally
different.  What caused that?

Other comments:

page 2, column 2, 2nd paragraph, line 6: \"The reconstructed phi...\"
this sentence makes no sense: the first and second halves are
inconsistent.  The phrase \"due to\" implies some logical connection,
but this is not made clear.

page 3, column 1, lines 5 and 8 and many others: Perhaps think about
some alternative to referring over and over again to g10 and g11.
These are our jargon words for describing our data sets, but the
general reader does not appreciate them.  I would try to come up with
another way to convey the same concepts.  Perhaps \"deuteron data set\"
and \"proton data set\".  Be sure you explain that we *have* a proton
data set before springing the phrase \"g11\" on the reader.

Also, you have grammar problems throughout the paper.  One example
starts on line 5 \"...which was taken during the g10 running period for
(NO THE) calibration purpose(S plural).\"  Another example in in the
next column line 5: \"Such A fit was performed...\"  I see you have at
least two native English speaking lead authors.  I recommend letting
them have a go at the grammar.

page 3, column 2 bottom: as with the previous draft, I think it is
distracting to the reader in introduce Equation 2, describe its
parameters, but then not use any of this information later in the
paper.  If I am an outside reader of your paper, and you make me
absorb this formula, then I expect to see you use it in some way that
compellingly supports your final physics result.  Since you are not
showing the proton cross sections or your fits to them, I don\'t want
to be bothered with this level of aimless detail.  You could just as
well leave out this material.

Again, the paper is much much better than before.  Please consider my
remaining comments as you finalize this work.

Sincerely,
Reinhard.