Abstract
Experimental cross sections for the reaction C12(γ,π0) at low energy have been used to deduce the isovector-multipole combination [2M1+(v)+M1(v)]/qk for the nucleon near π0 threshold. The effects of pion-wave distortion (distorted-wave impulse approximation) and Fermi motion in C12 are addressed in detail. By incorporating additional constraints on certain combinations of the p-wave multipoles as deduced from the Mainz H1(γ,π0) data, near-threshold values are obtained for the reduced proton p-wave (γ,π0) multipoles M1+/qk,M1/qk, and E1+/qk which are in excellent agreement with the VPI multipoles as given by the s a i d code but disagree with the findings of other authors. Combined with a conservative theoretical estimate of the isoscalar amplitude M1(s), these results permit a decomposition of M1(p) into isoscalar and isovector components in the near-threshold region.