Electroproduction of neutral pions in the Hall A at the Jefferson Laboratory; Electroproduction de pions neutres dans le Hall A au Jefferson Laboratory
The past decade has seen a strong evolution of the study of the hadron structure through exclusive processes, allowing to access to a more complete description of this structure. Exclusive processes include DVCS (Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering) as well as hard exclusive meson production. This document is particularly focussed on the latter, and more particularly on exclusive neutral pion production. In this thesis is described the analysis of triple coincidence events H(e, e'γγ)X, which were a consequent by-product of the DVCS experiment which occured during Fall 2004 at Jefferson Lab Hall A, to extract the ep → epπ 0 cross section. This cross section has been measured at two values of four-momentum transfer Q 2 = 1.9 GeV 2 and Q 2 = 2.3 GeV 2 . The statistical precision for these measurements is achieved at better than 5 %. The kinematic range allows to study the evolution of the extracted cross section as a function of Q 2 and W. Results are be confronted with Regge inspired calculations and Generalized (GPD) predictions. An intepretation of our