Experimental studies of pion-nucleus interactions at intermediate energies

Abstract

This report summarizes the work on experimental research in intermediate energy nuclear physics carried out at New Mexico State University in 1991 under a great from the US Department of Energy. Most of these studies have involved investigations of various pion-nucleus interactions. The work has been carried out both with the LAMPF accelerator at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and with the cyclotron at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) near Zurich, Switzerland. Part of the experimental work involves measurements of new data on double-charge-exchange scattering, using facilities at LAMPF which we helped modify, and on pion absorption, using a new detector system at PSI that covers nearly the full solid-angle region which we helped construct. Other work involved preparation for future experiments using polarized nuclear targets and a new high-resolution spectrometer system for detecting {pi}{sup 0} mesons. We also presented several proposals for works to be done in future years, involving studies related to pi-mesonic atoms, fundamental pion-nucleon interactions, studies of the difference between charged and neutral pion interactions with the nucleon, studies of the isospin structure of pion-nucleus interactions, and pion scattering from polarized {sup 3}He targets. This work is aimed at improving our understanding of the pion-nucleon interaction, of the pion-nucleus interaction mechanism, and of nuclear structure.