Study of the reaction pi- p --> pi- pi+ n on the polarized proton target at 1.78 GeV/c. Experiment and amplitude analysis

We present the results of the experimental study of the reaction of dipion production by the beam of the negative pions with momentum 1.78 GeV/c on the polarized proton and liquid hydrogen targets. The experiment covers the region of dipion masses near the mass of rho-meson and small momenta transferred |t|<0.2(GeV/c)^2. The whole set of spin density matrix elements was reconstructed and model-independent and model-dependent amplitude analyses of the reaction were performed. The experiment allows to exclude the ambiguity of the amplitude analysis existing at high energies. The results contain evidences in favour of existing of narrow sigma(750). The data also allows to estimate intercept of a_1-meson Regge trajectory. The experiment was performed at the ITEP proton synchrotron, Moscow.