Cross sections for the photoproduction of neutral pions have been measured at the 1.1-GeV Frascati electron synchrotron for bombarding photon energies k between 400 and 800 MeV and for π0 c.m. angles of θπ*=90∘, 120∘, and 135∘. The main feature of the experiment is good resolution in incident photon energy. The results are in good agreement with the existing theories in the energy range of 450 to 550 MeV. The cross sections exhibit a smooth behavior as a function of energy for k=400−600 MeV. No immediate evidence is found of a contribution of the P11 resonance. An anomaly at the limit of statistical significance appears for k≃700−740 MeV, indicating a possible structure of the so-called second resonance. We attempt to interpret the observed anomaly as a reflection of the sharp opening of the η production channel (η cusp effect).

The polarized target asymmetry in the reaction γ p → π 0 p has been measured at c.m. angles of 30°, 80°, 105° and 120° for incident photon energies below 1 GeV. Two decay photons from π 0 were detected in coincidence at 30°, and at the other angles recoil protons and single photons from π 0 were detected. The results are compared with recent phenomenological analyses.

The polarized target asymmetry in the reaction γp→π°p has been measured at c.m. angles around 100° for photon energies between 0.4 and 1.0 GeV by detecting both the recoil proton and the π°. The result is compared with recent analyses.

The recoil proton polarization of the reaction γ p → π 0 p was measured at a c.m. angle of 100° for incident photon energies between 451 and 1106 MeV, and at an angle of 130° for energies from 400 to 1142 MeV. One photon, decayed from a π 0 meson, and a recoil proton were detected in coincidence. Two kinds of polarization analyzer were employed. In the range of proton kinetic energy less than 420 MeV and higher than 346 MeV, carbon plates and liquid hydrogen were used for determining the polarization, respectively. The data given by the two polarimeter systems are in good agreement. Results are compared with recent phenomenological analyses. From the comparison between the present data and the polarized target data, the invariant amplitude A 3 can be estimated to be small.

Differential cross sections of neutral pion photoproduction on hydrogen were measured in the region between the first and the second nucleon resonance at photon energies of 400–500 MeV and were compared with results of an energy-independent multipole analysis.

Large-angle cross sections for γd→π0d are systematically measured in the photon energy range between 500 and 1000 MeV. A good fit is obtained by use of a Glauber-model calculation which includes the dibaryon resonances F33(2.26) and G41(2.51), but the fit has an unusual nature in the role of resonance and nonresonance contributions.

We report measurements of the differential cross section for photoproduction of π0 mesons from hydrogen, with the pion emerging near 0 deg, in the photon energy range 290 to 700 MeV. The results show no unusual behavior of the cross section in the forward direction. They are consistent with the angular distribution characteristic of a magnetic-dipole transition to a P32 state. The results agree reasonably well with theoretical predictions of Gourdin and Salin, but disagree with a prediction of DeTollis and Verganelakis. Least-squares fits in powers of cosθ have been made to the available angular distributions.

The process γ+p→π0+p has been studied by detecting recoil protons from a liquid hydrogen target which was bombarded by the bremsstrahlung beam of the California Institute of Technology electron synchrotron. The angle and momentum of the recoil protons were measured by a magnetic spectrometer-three scintillation counter coincidence system. The process has been studied between photon laboratory energies of 490 and 940 Mev and between pion center-of-mass angles of 31.5° and 147°. Protons which arose from meson pair production were significant at forward laboratory angles. A correction for this contamination is discussed. The results of these measurements show two interesting features. One is that the total cross section, which falls very rapidly above the 32−32 resonance energy near 320 Mev, reaches a minimum at about 600 Mev, and then increases to a broad maximum near 800 or 900 Mev. The other striking feature of the data is that the shape of the angular distribution seems to change rather suddenly near 900 Mev.

The bremsstrahlung beam of the Cornell Bev electron synchrotron has been used to study the reaction γ+p→π0+p over the photon energy range 250 Mev to 1 Bev, and for center-of-mass pion angles between 20° and 70°. The recoil protons, of energies between 10 and 60 Mev, were identified and their energies determined using a range telescope of eight thin plastic scintillators enclosed in a vacuum chamber with the thin liquid hydrogen target. Correlated pulse-height information was obtained by photographing an oscilloscope display and was used to sort out the protons from mesons and electrons. Corrections were made for the background of photoprotons from the Mylar target cup, the energy loss of the protons in the liquid hydrogen, absorption and scattering in the counter telescope, and the variation of beam intensity profile with energy. Compared with previous experiments and extrapolations the results show a somewhat smaller forward differential cross section above 400 Mev. The angular distributions obtained from a least-squares fit to all existing data indicate a d32 assignment for the 760-Mev resonance level. Other implications of the data are also discussed.

The polarization of the recoil proton in neutral single-pion photoproduction from hydrogen, γ+p→p+π0, has been measured for pion center-of-mass angles near 90° at 7 photon energies from 450 to 900 MeV. The polarization rises to a maximum of 0.58 near 600 MeV and is still 0.42 at 900 MeV. The sign of the polarization is negative in the sense of k×q, where k is the photon momentum and q is the pion momentum. The measured values are given as functions of laboratory photon energy and c.m. pion angle as follows: 450 MeV, 109°, -0.16±0.14; 525 MeV, 84°, -0.36±0.19; 585 MeV, 86°, -0.58±0.15; 660 MeV, 77°, -0.51±0.17; 755 MeV, 76°, -0.55±0.15; 810 MeV, 89°, -0.45±0.17; 895 MeV, 90°, -0.42±0.16. The recoil protons were momentum-analyzed with a magnetic spectrometer. Nuclear emulsion was used as scatterer and detector. The emulsion technique is discussed in detail. The number of individual scatterings in emulsion used for each measurement varied between 750 and 1000.