ELECTROMAGNETIC PRODUCTION OF KAONS ON THE NUCLEON

Kaon photo- and electroproduction in all six isospin channels is inves tigated by means of an isobaric model. It is found that existing model s can only partially describe the current experimental data. Moreover, the extracted coupling constants are mostly inconsistent with the pre diction of SU(3) symmetry or the information from hadronic reactions. In order to further analyze this problem, we introduce a form factor a t the hadronic vertices KNY (with Y = Lambda or Sigma) and study its b ehavior qualitatively. Our result suggests the need of more accurate e xperiments, especially in the charged Sigma and the neutral K-0 channe ls.