Beam asymmetries in near-thresholdωphotoproduction off the proton

The photoproduction of {omega} mesons off protons has been studied at the Bonn ELSA accelerator from threshold to E{sub {gamma}}=1700 MeV. Linearly polarized beams were produced via coherent bremsstrahlung. Large photon asymmetries in excess of 50% were obtained. For the first time the pion asymmetries associated with the {omega}{yields}{pi}{sup 0}{gamma} decay were measured and found close to zero. The asymmetries indicate s-channel resonance formation on top of t-channel exchange processes.