A partial-wave analysis of pion photoproduction data up to a photon lab energy of 1.8 GeV has been performed. Both energy-dependent and energy-independent solutions have been obtained. The energy-dependent parametrization incorporates the recently determined elastic pion nucleon scattering amplitudes in such a way as to satisfy unitarity and utilize the resonance structure contained in the pion nucleon elastic amplitudes. Starting from the energy-dependent solution, energy-independent partial-wave solutions are obtained at a set of energies from threshold to 1.8 GeV. The data base used in the analysis contains 11,911 data from the reactions. The predictions of our solution are compared with the experimental data and previous analyses. Suggestions are made for future experiments.

A total of sixteen resonances exist in the energy range from threshold to 1.8 GeV. These resonance states are studied using our energy-independent solutions. Photon decay couplings to the sixteen resonances are extracted. These couplings are also compared with previous solutions and quark model predictions.