Asymmetries in φ photoproduction and the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka violation

We study the vector-meson density matrix and the associated polarization asymmetries in φ photoproduction near threshold. In order to study the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka (OZI) violating processes, we consider the direct φNN coupling as well as the knockout processes arising from the nonvanishing ss̄ sea quarks in the nucleon. The polarization asymmetries in φ meson decays are found to be very useful to constrain the φNN coupling constant. The hidden strangeness of the nucleon can also be studied by these asymmetries, but mostly at large $|t|$ region.