Pion photoproduction cross section at large momentum transfer

Abstract

The Real Compton Scattering experiment was performed in Hall A at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. It was designed to measure, for Compton scattering and π 0-photoproduction, the differential cross section over a range of kinematic points and the polarisation transfer to the proton at a single kinematic point. The full range of the experiment in Mandelstam variables t and s was 1.64−6.46 GeV 2 and 4.82−10.92 GeV 2 respectively with beam energies of 2−6 GeV. The motivation for the experiment is to test the cross section and polarisation transfer predictions of perturbative QCD versus that of predictions from Generalised Parton Distribution models. This thesis will give an overview of the pertinent theory, experimental setup in Hall A and the extracting of the π 0-photoproduction cross section.