Lambda(1405,1/2^-) photoproduction from the gamma p -> K^+ Lambda(1405) reaction

We investigate the photoproduction of Lambda(1405,1/2^-) = Lambda* off the proton target using the effective Lagrangian in the Born approximation. We observed that, depending on the choice of the K* N Lambda* coupling strength, the total cross section becomes 0.1 <~ sigma_Lambda* <~ 0.2 mu b near the threshold and starts to decrease beyond E_gamma ~ 1.6 GeV, and the angular dependence shows a mild enhancement in the forward direction. It turns out that the energy dependence of the total cross section is similar to that shown in the recent LEPS experiment. This suggests that the production mechanism of the Lambda* is dominated by the s-channel contribution.