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Spin observables in pion photoproduction from a unitary and causal effective field theory

Pion photoproduction is analyzed with the chiral Lagrangian. Partial-wave amplitudes are obtained by an analytic extrapolation of subthreshold reaction amplitudes computed in chiral perturbation theory, where the constraints set by electromagnetic-gauge invariance, causality and unitarity are used to stabilize the extrapolation. The experimental data set is reproduced up to energies $\sqrt{s}\simeq 1300$ MeV in terms of the parameters relevant at order $Q^3$. We present and discuss predictions for various spin observables.