Beam-Helicity Asymmetries in Double-Pion Photoproduction off the Proton

Beam-helicity asymmetries have been measured at the MAMI accelerator in Mainz in the three isospin channels (gamma) over right arrowp -> pi(+)pi(0)n, (gamma) over right arrowp -> pi(0)pi(0)p and (gamma) over right arrowp -> pi(+)pi(-)p. The circularly polarized photons, produced from bremsstrahlung of longitudinally polarized electrons, were tagged with the Glasgow magnetic spectrometer. Charged pions and the decay photons of pi(0) mesons were detected in a 4 pi electromagnetic calorimeter which combined the Crystal Ball detector with the TAPS detector. The precisely measured asymmetries are very sensitive to details of the production processes and are thus key observables in the modeling of the reaction dynamics.