Low-energy pion photoproduction from p-shell nuclei

Abstract

Low-energy pion photoproduction off 6Li, 10B, and 14N has been reinvestigated in a DWIA framework that includes a number of improvements neglected in previous analyses. The production operator is based on Feynman diagrams and includes correction terms of order p2/M2 and higher. An s-channel delta resonance term is included with both longitudinal and transverse electromagnetic couplings. Rather than using on harmonic oscillator for the nucleon orbitals we employ Woods–Saxon wave functions that have been adjusted to fit electron-scattering form factors and single-particle binding energies. Furthermore, we include the Coulomb potential without approximation in our momentum-space approach. Using more realistic wave functions and including corrections to the production amplitude that have been neglected before leads to considerable improvement in the case of 10B and 14N when compared with existing data. The Coulomb effects are shown to change the cross section by about 30% close to threshold but are negligible at higher energies.