Target and beam-target spin asymmetries in exclusive pion electroproduction for Q2>1 GeV2. II. ep→eπ0p

Beam-target double-spin asymmetries and target single-spin asymmetries were measured for the exclusive π 0 electroproduction reaction γ ∗ p → p π 0 , expanding an analysis of the γ ∗ p → n π + reaction from the same experiment. The results were obtained from scattering of 6-GeV longitudinally polarized electrons off longitudinally polarized protons using the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer at Jefferson Laboratory. The kinematic ranges covered are 1.1 < W < 3 GeV and 1 < Q 2 < 6 GeV 2 . Results were obtained for about 5700 bins in W , Q 2 , cos ( θ ∗ ) , and ϕ ∗ . The beam-target asymmetries were found to generally be greater than zero, with relatively modest ϕ ∗ dependence. The target asymmetries exhibit very strong ϕ ∗ dependence, with a change in sign occurring between results at low W and high W , in contrast to π + electroproduction. Reasonable agreement is found with phenomenological fits to previous data for W < 1.6 GeV, but significant differences are seen at higher W . When combined with cross-sectional measurements, as well as π + observables, the present results will provide powerful constraints on nucleon resonance amplitudes at moderate and large values of Q 2 , for resonances with masses as high as 2.4 GeV.