Photo- and electroproduction of strangeness

Different phenomenological approaches are compared for the reaction γp → K+Λ. It is shown that once K+Λ final-state absorptive effects are included, cross section data up to 3 GeV can be included in the fit. In hypernuclear photoproduction the high spin states with large cross section can be predicted within 50% uncertainty while the low spin states depend strongly on details of the γp → K+Λ amplitude. Futhermore, it is demonstrated that the deuteron can be used to extract neutron cross sections like γn → K0Λ or Σ0 away from threshold. Finally, the potential of the process p(e, e'K+)Λ to reveal more about the K+ electromagnetic form factor is explored. (orig.)