K*$^{0}$ photoproduction off the proton at CLAS

The photoproduction of vector mesons has previously focused on the nonstrange sector, with $\rho $, $\omega $ or $\phi $ mesons in the final state. The lightest vector meson with nonzero strangeness is the K* of which little is known for photoproduction. The large acceptance of the CLAS detector makes it possible to capture both K* decay products, the pion and the kaon. In this talk we will show differential cross sections for the K*$^{0}\Sigma ^{+}$ final state over photon energies ranging from about 1.8 to 3.0 GeV. These data are compared with a theoretical model by Zhao \textit{et al.} using a quark-model for the K*-baryon couplings. Our data show that the forward-angle data are well described by the t-channel, hence providing constraints for the K*$\Sigma $N coupling constant At larger angles, the s-channel is well described by the model of Zhao \textit{et al.} over a range of angles and photon energies. The K* couplings determined from our data will more tightly constrain calculations for scalar kaon production, where K* exchange occurs as a virtual particle in the t-channel.