Pion production and the higher resonances in pion-nucleon scattering

Abstract

The reaction π + N → 2 π + N has been studied in the vicinity of the higher resonances in the pion-nucleon cross section. The Low equation for the production amplitude is transformed into an integral equation by isolating the true one-meson intermediate states and discarding higher order contributions. The only part kept in the inhomogeneous term corresponds to the collision of a pion in the nucleon cloud with the incident pion in the resonant T = J = 1 state, which is simulated by an unstable vector Boson. Crossed terms are neglected and the 2 π- N state is described by the static model. The terms kept in the sum over states describe the rescattering (off the nucleon) of one of the outgoing pions. The required off-the-energy-shell elastic scattering amplitude is approximated by the 3-3 resonance formula of Chew and Low. With these simplifications the Low equation for the production amplitude reduces to an easily soluble linear integral equation. The rescattering amplitude, which dominates the inhomogeneous term in the resonance region, is proportional to the 3-3 scattering amplitude of one of the outgoing pions. Although the result provides some support for the conventional isobar model, it is important to note that the largeness of the rescattering term arises from scattering far off the energy shell, rather than by “real” excitation as in the phenomenological isobar model. Quantitative calculations for the D 3 2 channel leading to a p-wave ( J = 3 2 ) and an s-wave pion produce a maximum in the cross section near 600 Mev incident pion lab energy. For a π-π resonance energy squared S = 10, agreement with experiment is obtained with a width about one third that suggested by nucleon electromagnetic structure. In our approximation, the well known 600 Mev D 3 2 isospin 1 2 resonance occurs at the same energy as the 800 Mev D 3 2 isospin 3 2 resonance. It is assumed, but not proved, that the neglected terms are responsible for the splitting of the resonance energies. When this splitting is taken into account, the predicted charge state ratios near the second resonance agree well with existing data. The “third” resonance occurs for the state having two p-wave pions, according to the present theory, although no numerical calculations were made for this case. This point of view suggests that the F 3 2 , P 3 2 , and P 1 2 incident channels contribute to the third resonance.