Cross sections and beam asymmetries for e→p→enπ + in the nucleon resonance region for 1.7⩽Q 2 ⩽4.5 GeV 2

The exclusive electroproduction process $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{e}p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{e}^{'}n{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}$ was measured in the range of the photon virtuality ${Q}^{2}=1.7\text{\ensuremath{-}}4.5 {\mathrm{GeV}}^{2}$, and the invariant mass range for the $n{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}$ system of $W=1.15\text{\ensuremath{-}}1.7 \mathrm{GeV}$ using the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer. For the first time, these kinematics are probed in exclusive ${\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}$ production from protons with nearly full coverage in the azimuthal and polar angles of the $n{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}$ center-of-mass system. The $n{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}$ channel has particular sensitivity to the isospin \textonehalf{} excited nucleon states, and together with the $p{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{0}$ final state will serve to determine the transition form factors of a large number of resonances. The largest discrepancy between these results and present modes was seen in the ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{{\mathit{LT}}^{'}}$ structure function. In this experiment, 31,295 cross section and 4,184 asymmetry data points were measured. Because of the large volume of data, only a reduced set of structure functions and Legendre polynomial moments can be presented that are obtained in model-independent fits to the differential cross sections.