Photoproduction of Neutral Pions from Hydrogen in the Energy Range 700-1100 Mev

Gamma-rays from the decay of neutral pions photoproduced from hydrogen by the bremsstrahlung beam of the Caltech synchrotron have been studied with a thallium chloride crystal total absorption spectrometer. The energy spectrum of the decay gamma-rays produced by a range of incident photon energy is obtained by the photon difference method and this spectrum enables a separation of the gamma-rays into two groups: (i) those from the decay of neutral pions produced singly from hydrogen and (ii) those from the decay of neutral pions from multipleproduction reactions. The cross sections for the single-production reaction are in agreement with the recoil proton experiments at Caltech and Cornell. For the multiple-production reactions we measure the cross section for producing neutral pions within a range of kinetic energies: It is shown that all available multiple-production data can be explained in terms of two compound states, one at about 750 Mev and the other at some higher energy. This is in agreement with an analysis of the single-photoproduction data, which is given in an appendix. These two states are, respectively, ($T=\frac{1}{2}$, $J=\frac{1}{2}+$) and ($T=\frac{3}{2}$, $J=\frac{1}{2}+$).