Strangeness production via electromagnetic probes: 40 years later

Abstract

A brief review of the associated strangeness electromagnetic production is presented. Very recent K+ Lambda photoproduction data on the proton from threshold up to E=2.6 GeV are interpreted within a chiral constituent quark formalism, which embodies all known nucleonic and hyperonic resonances. The preliminary results of this work are reported here.

Comments: 12 pages, 4 figures; Invited talk given at the International Symposium on Electrophoto-production of Strangeness on Nucleons and Nuclei, Sendai, Japan, June 16-18, 2003; World Scientific (to appear)