Exclusive single pion electroproduction off the proton: Results from CLAS
Exclusive meson electroproduction off protons is a powerful tool to probe the effective degrees of freedom in excited nucleon states at the varying distance scale where the transition from the contributions of both quark core and meson-baryon cloud to the quark core dominance. During the past decade, the CLAS collaboration has executed a broad experimental program to study the excited states of the proton using polarized electron beam and both polarized and unpolarized proton targets. The measurements covered a broad kinematic range in the invariant mass $W$ and photon virtuality $Q^2$ with nearly full coverage in polar and azimuthal angles in the hadronic CM system. As results, several low-lying nucleon resonance states in particular from pion threshold to $W < 1.6$ GeV have been explored. These include $\Delta$(1232)$\frac{3}{2}^+$, $N(1440)\frac{1}{2}^+$, $N(1520)\frac{3}{2}^-$, and $N(1535)\frac{1}{2}^-$ states. In addition, we recently published the differential cross sections and helicity amplitudes of the reaction $\gamma^*p\to n\pi^+$ at higher $W$ (1.6 to 2.0 GeV) which are the $N(1675)\frac{5}{2}^-$, $N(1680)\frac{5}{2}^+$, and $N(1710)\frac{1}{2}^+$ states. These excited states with isospin $1/2$ and with masses near 1.7 GeV can be accessed in single $n\pi^+$ production as there are no isospin $3/2$ states present in this mass range with the same spin-parity assignments. As a result, I will briefly discuss these states from CLAS results of the single charged pion electroproduction data.