Measurement of pi^0 photoproduction on the proton at MAMI C

Understand

Differential cross sections for the gamma p -> pi^0 p reaction have been measured with the A2 tagged-photon facilities at the Mainz Microtron, MAMI C, up to the center-of-mass energy W=1.9 GeV.

• The new results, obtained with a fine energy and angular binning, increase the existing quantity of pi^0 photoproduction data by ~47%.
• Owing to the unprecedented statistical accuracy and the full angular coverage, the results are sensitive to high partial-wave amplitudes.
• This is demonstrated by the decomposition of the differential cross sections in terms of Legendre polynomials and by further comparison to model predictions.