Radiative Pion Capture in Flight and Charged Pion Photoproduction in Nuclei

Abstract

Differential and total cross sections are calculated for charged pion photoproduction and radiative pion capture in flight close to threshold [Formula: see text], mainly for a target of 12C. At the lower energies, selective bound state excitation may be studied in photo-production since the giant resonance is kinematically suppressed here. Pion absorption is found to increase considerably with decreasing pion energy due to a 1/νπ factor, and it shows a dip in the forward direction except for the 1+ state. Distortion and absorption effects on the pion are calculated, and are estimated to lead to only a small reduction of the cross section in the energy region considered.