Nucleon Resonance Physics

Abstract: Recent results of meson photo-production at the existing electron machines with polarized real photon beams and the measurement of polarization observables of the final state baryons have provided high precision data that led to the discovery of new excited nucleon and $\Delta$ states using multi-channel partial wave analyses procedures. The internal structure of several prominent excited states has been revealed employing meson electroproduction processes. On the theoretical front, lattice QCD is now predicting the baryon spectrum with very similar characteristics as the constituent quark model, and continuum QCD, such as is represented in the Dyson-Schwinger Equations approach and in light front relativistic quark models, describes the non-perturbative behavior of resonance excitations at photon virtuality of $Q^2 > 1.5GeV^2$. In this talk I discuss the need to continue a vigorous program of nucleon spectroscopy and the study of the internal structure of excited states as a way to reveal the effective degrees of freedom underlying the excited states and their dependence on the distance scale probed.