Eur. Phys. J. A (2007) 31: 61-77
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2006-10160-3

Regular Article - Hadron Physics

Photoproduction of πmesons off protons from the Δ(1232) region to E_γ = 3 GeV

¹ Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik, Universität Bonn, Germany
² Department of Physics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
³ Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, Russia
⁴ Physikalisches Institut, Universität Erlangen, Germany
⁵ Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bonn, Germany
⁶ Kernfysisch Versneller Instituut, Groningen, The Netherlands
⁷ Institut für Experimentalphysik I, Universität Bochum, Germany
⁸ Institut für Physik, Universität Basel, Switzerland
⁹ II. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Gießen, Germany

^* e-mail: klempt@hiskp.uni-bonn.de

Received: 5 December 2006
Accepted: 10 December 2006
Published online: 19 January 2007

Abstract

Photoproduction of π⁰-mesons was studied with the Crystal-Barrel detector at ELSA for incident energies from 300MeV to 3GeV. Differential cross-sections dσ/dΩ, dσ/dt, and the total cross-section are presented. For E _γ < 3GeV, the angular distributions agree well with the SAID parametrization. At photon energies above 1.5GeV, a strong forward peaking indicates t-channel exchange to be the dominant process. The rapid variations of the cross-section with energy and angle indicate production of resonances. An interpretation of the data within the Bonn-Gatchina partial-wave analysis is briefly discussed.