Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
We report on the investigation of Δ(1232) production and decay in proton-proton collisions at a kinetic energy of 1.25 GeV measured with HADES. Exclusive dilepton decay channels ppe+e− and ppe+e−γ have been studied and compared with the partial-wave analysis of the hadronic ppπ0 channel. They allow to access both Δ+→pπ0(e+e−γ) and Δ+→pe+e− Dalitz decay channels. The perfect reconstruction of the well-known π0 Dalitz decay serves as a proof of the consistency of the analysis. The Δ Dalitz decay is identified for the first time and the sensitivity to N-Δ transition form factors is tested. The Δ(1232) Dalitz decay branching ratio is also determined for the first time; our result is (4.19 ± 0.62 syst. ± 0.34 stat.) ×10−5, albeit with some model dependence.