Inclusive distributions of diffractively produced neutral kaons, lambdas, and antilambdas, and upper limits on Λ/sub c/+ production in high energy γ p interactions

The author has used a large acceptance spectrometer in a tagged photon beam to study the interactions of real photons with protons in a hydrogen target. In particular, this thesis presents distributions of neutral kaons, lambdas, and antilambdas from diffractive dissociation where the kinematic regions of the target and projectile fragments are clearly distinguished by using events with clean recoiling protons. This data extends the neutral strange particle production rate measurements to higher overall centre-of-mass energies than previous photoproduction experiments. Comparison to pion-induced reactions supports the hypothesis that the photon behaves primarily as a hardon. Finally, upper limits have been set on the Λ/sub c/+ cross section times the branching ratio for decay modes leading to neutral strange particles for a diffractive dissociation process