Strange hadronic physics in electroproduction experiments at the Mainz Microtron

Present and future research into the electroproduction of strangeness plays an important role at Mainz Microtron MAMI. With the Kaos spectrometer for kaon detection operated in the multi-spectrometer facility first cross section measurements of the exclusive p ( e , e ′ K + ) Λ , Σ 0 reactions at low-momentum transfers have been performed. These measurements have clearly discriminated between effective Lagrangian models for photo- and electroproduction of strangeness. Recently, the Kaos spectrometer was upgraded to a double-arm spectrometer for the measurement of elementary cross sections at very forward scattering angles and for the missing mass spectroscopy of hypernuclear states. In parallel, pioneering experiments on decay-pion spectroscopy of electroproduced hypernuclei were carried out at MAMI. Future experiments will on the one side address the cross section of the elementary process with polarized beam and on the other side continue the hypernuclear spectroscopy with different light nuclear targets.