For the

For the p ( ! ;K+) 0 reaction, polarisation observables were measured using linearly polarised photons in CLAS, during the G8a experiment in the summer of 2001. Using the CEBAF accelerator facility in Virginia, USA, an incident electron beam energy of 5.7 GeV was achieved. The electron beam then passed into the newly commissioned Coherent Bremsstrahlung Facility, producing a beam of linearly polarised photons. For the purpose of this thesis the polarised photon beam, of energy 1.6 GeV < E ! < 2.0 GeV, then collided with a fixed liquid hydrogen target. The CLAS detector was used to detect several charged particles that were the signature of the decay channels chosen for this experiment. For the analysis presented here, the decay particles of K+, proton and which are produced from the decay of a K+ and a 0, are analysed in terms of azimuthal distributions to extract a value for the photon asymmetry. This value can be calculated over a range of polar angles in the centre-of-mass frame of the K+ 0 reaction. The polar angle is defined in terms of the direction of the K+ in the centre-of-mass frame of the reaction, and the results are presented in 4 variable-width bins over the range of 20 degrees to 130 degrees. The quality of these measurements vindicates the choice of apparatus for the G8a experiment. A proof-of-principle experiment, the fact that the existing data set for this reaction have been extended in terms of the polar angle range by a factor of two by the G8a experiment shows that using linearly polarised photons at CLAS is indeed an effective way of investigating the polarisation observables for a variety of charged-particle final states. These measurements are then compared with the tree-level isobar model of Janssen, which takes account of the effect of N resonance exchange on the kaon photoproduction propagator of Adelseck et.al. The model of Janssen incorporates a genetic algorithm approach to finding the most likely resonance contributions to the propagator, using the previous experimental measurements made of the K+ 0 polarisation observables at SAPHIR and CLAS. This comparison suggests the presence of a resonance with mass 1900MeV= 2, which is also indicated by previous cross-section data produced from SAPHIR and CLAS. Furthermore the identification of the quantum numbers of the resonance, made possible by considering the relevant polarisation observables, indicates that the N resonance in question may be the controversial “missing” D13(1895) resonance.