Speaker
Description
A linearly polarized photon beam acts as a filter to disentangle the production mechanisms and suppress background processes in the photoproduction of mesons and baryons. Compton backscattering of laser light off the 8 GeV electrons circulating in the SPring-8 storage ring provides a high-intensity beam of linearly polarized photons in a range of $1.4$ - $2.9$ GeV. The LEPS facility featured a large dipole spectrometer and operated in the last 20 years. LEPS data encompasses final states produced forward, such as $K^+$, $K^\ast$, and $\phi$ from photoproduction and manifested in experimental observables such as the cross-section and beam asymmetry. In addition, associated hyperon production with $K^\ast$ is fascinating to unveil the nature of $\Lambda(1405)$. The LEPS2 facility, consisting of a large solenoid magnet and a time projection chamber, has recently completed its first phase of beam commissioning and physics running. Analysis effort of the first dataset is now underway. We will present selected recent highlights with LEPS and the prospects of the LEPS2 facility.
