Measurement of the Beam Asymmetryin the Forward Direction for ~ ! pπ 0

Photoproduction of neutral pions has been studied with the CBELSA/TAPS detector for photon energies between 0.92 and 1.68 GeV at the electron accelerator ELSA. The beam asymmetry � has been extracted for 115 ◦ < �c.m. < 155 ◦ of the � 0 meson and forc.m. < 60 ◦ . The new beam asymmetry data improve the world database for photon energies above 1.5 GeV and, by covering the very forward region, extend previously published data for the same reaction by our collaboration. The angular dependence ofshows overall good agreement with the SAID parameterization. PACS numbers: 13.60.Le Meson production, 13.60.-r Photon and charged-lepton interactions with hadrons, 13.75.Gx Pion-baryon interactions, 13.88.+e Polarization in interactions and scattering, 14.40.Aq �, K, and � mesons, 25.20.Lj Photoproduction reactions