Complete Experiments for Pion Photoproduction

The possibilities of a model-independent partial wave analysis for pion, eta or kaon photoproduction are discussed in the context of complete experiments. It is shown that the helicity amplitudes obtained from at least 8 polarization observables including beam, target and recoil polarization can not be used to analyze nucleon resonances. However, a truncated partial wave analysis, which requires only 5 observables will be possible with minimal model assumptions.