Pion absorption processes. [32 to 74 MeV

Abstract

Proton and deuteron production from low-energy pion absorption in light nuclei leading to discrete and continuum states were measured. The LEP beam line at LAMPF was used with a stack of 8 intrinsic germanium crystals. The proton energy spectra are in general characterized by a broad bump at an energy approximately corresponding to ..pi../sup +/d ..-->.. pp reaction kinematics, suggestive of pion absorption on 2 nucleons. The energy-integrated cross-section for production of deuterons has an angular distribution similar to that for production of protons. The dependence of the total pion absorption cross-section on A is explained using a semi-classical model for pion transport in nuclei. The (..pi../sup +/,p) as well as (..pi../sup +/,d) reactions generally favor transitions involving larger angular momentum transfer to the residual nucleus when states of similar nuclear structure are considered. The low-energy excitation spectra from the (..pi../sup +/,p) reaction are similar to the spectra from (p,d) reaction on /sup 12/C and /sup 13/C. However, a calculation of the (..pi.. = ,p) cross-section using the measured (p,d) reaction with the formulation of Wilkin to relate the two reactions is in moderate disagreement with the measured (..pi../sup +/,p) cross-sections. The excitation spectra from the (..pi../sup +/,p) reaction indicte the importance of two-step processes for the reaction. The (..pi../sup +/,d) reaction leading to the ground state of -- residual nucleus has been seen for /sup 7/Li, /sup 12/C, and /sup 13/C targets. The measured cross section for the /sup 12/C(..pi../sup +/,d)/sup 10/C reaction to the 2/sup +/ state is much higher than that for the ground state. For the case of /sup 18/O, no counts were seen for excitation energy of < 10 MeV, at a sensitivity of approx. 100 nb/sr count. These features indicate a possible failure of the model of Betz and Kerman for the (..pi../sup +/,d) reaction.