Electroproduction of the<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi mathvariant="italic">Δ</mml:mi><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:mn>1232</mml:mn><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:math>Resonance at High Momentum Transfer

We studied the electroproduction of the $\ensuremath{\Delta}(1232)$ resonance via the reaction $p({e,e}^{\ensuremath{'}}p){\ensuremath{\pi}}^{0}$ at four-momentum transfers ${Q}^{2}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}2.8\mathrm{and}4.0{\mathrm{GeV}}^{2}$. This is the highest ${Q}^{2}$ for which exclusive resonance electroproduction has ever been observed. Decay angular distributions for $\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}p{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{0}$ were measured over a wide range of barycentric energies covering the resonance. The $N--\ensuremath{\Delta}$ transition form factor ${G}_{M}^{*}$ and ratios of resonant multipoles ${E}_{1+}/{M}_{1+}$ and ${S}_{1+}/{M}_{1+}$ were extracted from the decay angular distributions. These ratios remain small, indicating that perturbative QCD is not applicable for this reaction at these momentum transfers.