LAUSR

We study the meson photoproduction on protons and nuclei at near-threshold center-of-mass energies below 11.4 GeV (or at the corresponding photon laboratory energies below 68.8 GeV). We calculate the absolute excitation functions for the nonresonant and resonant photoproduction of mesons off protons at incident photon laboratory energies of 63-68 GeV by considering direct ( ) and two-step ( , , ) production channels within different scenarios for the nonresonant total cross section of the elementary reaction and for branching ratios of the decays , , and . We also calculate an analogous function for the photoproduction of mesons on the 12C and 208Pb target nuclei in the near-threshold center-of-mass beam energy region of 9.0-11.4 GeV by considering the respective incoherent direct ( ) and two-step ( , , and , , ) ) production processes using a nuclear spectral function approach. We demonstrate that a detailed scan of the total photoproduction cross section on proton and nuclear targets in the near-threshold energy region in future high-precision experiments at the proposed high-luminosity electron-ion colliders EIC and EicC in the US and China should provide a definite result for or against the existence of the nonstrange hidden-bottom pentaquark states and ( =1, 2, 3) as well as clarify their decay rates.