OFF-SHELL EFFECTS IN THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PRODUCTION OF STRANGENESS

Previous approaches to the photoproduction and electroproduction of st rangeness off the proton, based upon effective hadronic Lagrangians, a re extended here to incorporate the so-called off-shell effects inhere nt to the fermions with spin greater than or equal to 3/2. A formalism for intermediate-state, spin-3/2, nucleonic, and hyperonic resonances is presented and applied to the processes gamma p-->K(+)Lambda, for E (gamma)(lab)less than or equal to 2.5 GeV, ep-->e'K(+)Lambda, as well as the branching ratio for the crossed channel reaction K(-)p-->gamma Lambda, with stopped kaons. The sensitivity, from moderate to signific ant, of various observables to such effects are discussed.