Experimental results on pseudoscalar meson photoproduction

We summarize the preliminary results of an experiment on photoproduction of the final states π±N, π±Δ (1236), K+Λ and K+Σ from hydrogen and deuterium targets using a 16 GeV linearly polarized photon beam. Momentum transfers(t) lie between −0.002 and −1.5 GeV2. The photon polarization allows the separation of natural and unnatural parity exchange contributions to these reactions. The natural parity exchange cross sections dominate in all reactions for ∣t∣ ≳ 0.8 GeV2, where they all fall off approximately as e. Combined with lower energy data, our results for γn ⇒ π−p are consistent with a simple pion Regge Pole behavior for the unnatural parity exchange cross section. Some results are compared with the vector dominant related reactions π−p ⇒ ρn and πp ⇒ ρΔ.