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Current Issues in Kaon Photoelectro-Production off the Nucleon

The electromagnetic kaon production amplitudes associated to Lambda/Sigma hyperons can be described by phenomenological models, most notably by isobar approaches. Experimental data on kaon production have been collected at ELSA, SPring8, GRAAL, LNS Tohoku, and Jefferson Lab in the past, the measurements at Jefferson Lab providing the largest kinematic coverage and statistical significance. However, ambiguities inherent in the models, some data inconsistency in the cross-sections taken at different laboratories, and the problem of missing acceptance in forward direction of the experimental set-ups hinders a reliable extraction of resonance parameters. Predictions for the hypernuclear photo-production cross-section rely on a consistent and comprehensive description of the elementary process at forward kaon angles, where the current strong variation of the models is very unsatisfactory. A number of new experiments are now addressing these issues, among them the charged kaon electro-production programme with the Kaos spectrometer at the Mainz Microtron MAMI. In this work predictions of the two prominent isobar models, Kaon-Maid and Saclay-Lyon A, are compared for the kinematics at MAMI.