Kaon Photoproduction in the Feynman and Regge Theories

A significant progress has been achieved in the experimental side of the strangeness photoproduction. A wealth of new high-statistics data on elementary kaon photoproduction has recently become available in all three isospin channels. Along with some new advancements in the theoretical side this has made the field of kaon electromagnetic production to be of considerable interest. Nevertheless, in spite of substantial efforts spent for almost 40 years, a comprehensive and consistent description of the underlying reaction mechanism is far from available. This might be due to the presence of the strangeness, which explicitly appears in the final state of the process. The presence of this additional degree of freedom leads to a more complex theoretical effort in explaining experimental data. One of the most tantalizing problem is the high energy reaction threshold. Thus, even at threshold, a copious number of baryon resonances might already contribute to the process. On the other hand, an extension of phenomenological models to higher energies becomes an urgent task if, for instance, we consider the calculation of the GDH sum rule. At Jefferson Lab, kaon electroproduction experiment has been performed with total c.m. energy W = 3 GeV. A proposal for upgrading the accelerator to reach 12 GeV has been also discussed. To