π∓Photoproduction in Forward Direction

The ratio of ${\pi }^{-}$ to ${\pi }^{+}$ off deuterium was measured as a function of incident photon energy from 600 to 1700 MeV in the forward direction. The ratio shows a broad dip around a center-of-mass energy of 1700 MeV, resulting presumably from the collective effect of several isospin-½ resonances in this energy region. Such a change in the ratio is reflected in the rapid variation of the isoscalar photoproduction amplitude since we found the isovector photoproduction amplitude to be a relatively smooth function decreasing slowly with increasing incident photon energy.