Photon- and meson-induced reactions on the nucleon

Abstract

Starting from a unitary effective Lagrangian model for the meson-nucleon scattering developed in T. Feuster and U. Mosel, Phys. Rev. 58, 457 (1998), we come to a unified description of both meson scattering and photon-induced reactions on the nucleon. To this end the photon is added perturbatively, yielding both Compton scattering and meson photoproduction amplitudes. In a simultaneous fit to all available data the parameters of the nucleon resonances are extracted. We find that a global fit to the data of the various channels involving the final states $\gamma N,$ $\pi N,$ $\pi \pi N,$ $\eta N,$ and $K\Lambda$ is possible. Especially in eta photoproduction a readjustment of the masses and widths found in the fits to hadronic reactions alone is necessary to describe the data. Only for the $D_{13}\mathrm{}\left(1520\right)\mathrm{}$ do we find a possible disagreement for the helicity couplings extracted using the combined data set and pion photoproduction multipoles alone. The model dependence introduced by the restoration of gauge invariance is discussed and found to be significant mainly for resonances with small helicity couplings.