Spin-parity analysis of the decay distributions of unnatural parity mesons

We describe a method of spin-parity analysis of the full angular distribution arising from the two-stage decays of mesonic states. We show, in terms of a simple model for diffractive meson production, how it may be used to explore the unnatural parity meson spectrum. As typical examples we discuss the procedure for partial-wave analyses of the decay distributions resulting from the reactions K− p → (Λp)p and Kp → (φK)p.