Measurement of the Beam Asymmetry $\hat{I}\pounds$ in the Forward Direction for pi0 Photoproduction

Abstract

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~$\hat{I}\pounds$ has been extracted for $115^{\circ }<\hat{I}{¸}_{c.m.}<155^{\circ }$ of the $\ddot{I}{€}^0$~meson and for $\hat{I}{¸}_{c.m.}<60^{\circ }$. 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 of $\hat{I}\pounds$ shows overall good agreement with the SAID parameterization.

11 pages, 10 figures, published in Phys. Rev. C, included LEPS data and MAID 2007 predictions for comparison with our data