An Upper Limit on the Photoproduction Cross Section of the Spin-Exotic Π_1(1600)

The spin-exotic hybrid meson π_1(1600) is predicted to have a large decay rate to the ωππ final state. Using 76.6 pb^-1 of data collected with the GlueX detector, we measure the cross sections for the reactions γ p →ωπ^+ π^- p, γ p →ωπ^0 π^0 p, and γ p→ωπ^-π^0Δ^++ in the range E_γ = 8-10 GeV. Using isospin conservation, we set the first upper limits on the photoproduction cross sections of the π^0_1(1600) and π^-_1(1600). We combine these limits with lattice calculations of decay widths and find that photoproduction of η'π is the most sensitive two-body system to search for the π_1(1600).