Photoproduction of Neutral Pions at Energies 500 to 940 Mev

The process $\gamma +p\to {\pi }^0+p$ 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 $\frac{3}{2}-\frac{3}{2}$ 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.