The eta' photoproduction off the nucleon in the quark model

The reaction gamma + p --> eta' + p is investigated in the quark model approach. The quark model predicts that the off-shell contributions from the resonance S-11(1535) dominate the eta' production in the threshold region. We find that the coupling constant alpha(eta')NN from the fit to a few total cross section data is small. The results of the total and differential cross sections are presented at different energies, which can be tested in future experiments. If future total cross section data indeed show a resonance structure around 2 GeV as suggested in a recent study, it would be evidence of a non-qqq structure in its wavefunction.