A partial-wave analysis for proton compton scattering in the Δ(1232) energy region

Based on the nowadays available phenomenological multipoles for pion photoproduction, a systematic dispersion theoretic calculation of Compton partial amplitudes has been performed. By comparing with the new experimental data in the Δ(1232) region it is found that the hitherto existing discrepancies between the data and theory remain. Our results allow us to isolate the basis of this problem. It is due to the fact that the imaginary parts of the Compton amplitudes determined already by unitarity, give too large contributions to the cross section thus leaving no space for real parts required by the dispersion integrals.Therefore a simultaneous partial-wave analysis for Compton scattering and pion photoproduction was carried through employing only the unitarity connections between both. The resulting amplitudes give a good fit to the Compton cross section and all photoproduction data; moreover the photoproduction multipoles agree essentially with those of the previous analyses. On the other hand for Compton scattering, phenomenological amplitudes are obtained for the first time and a model independent test of dispersion theoretic amplitudes can be carried out. For the resonating f_MM¹⁺ amplitude which describes the M1 excitation and deexcitation to the Δ-isobar, large discrepancies have been found. Possible consequences especially for the forward scattering amplitude and the validity of the Kramers-Kronig relation are discussed.