Meson photoproduction on the nucleon with polarized photons

Meson photoproduction with polarized photons has proved to be a powerful tool to identify contributions of baryon resonances that are not evident in the differential cross-sections. It provides information that are complementary to those extracted using pion-nucleon scattering data. Extensive results have been produced in the past on beam asymmetries by the Graal collaboration for eta and pi(0) on the proton. New results are now available for the same reactions on the quasi-free neutron and for the K+ photoproduction on the proton. Contributions from hitherto undetected baryon resonances may be important to understand the results.