A Study of Eta Photoproduction on the Proton at

In recent years, there has been much interest in the possible existence of the N*(1685) narrow nucleon resonance, as predicted by the chiral soliton model. Several η pho-toproduction experiments have been performed that rely on extracting neutron ob-servables from deuteron target data. These have shown some evidence of narrow structure, however, no structure was observed in cross section measurements on the proton channel. Within the A2 collaboration at the MAMI accelerator in Mainz, Germany, a more detailed study has been undertaken using η photoproduction on a liquid H2 target, and is the subject for this thesis. The study utilised the high resolution and high precision possible with the A2 detector setup, in an attempt to overcome the predicted low photocoupling between the N*(1685) and the pro-ton. The MAMI electron beam was used to produce bremsstrahlung photons, the ener-gies of which are determined by detecting the recoil electrons in the Glasgow-Mainz Tagged Photon Spectrometer. The reaction products from the interaction of th