Eur. Phys. J. A (2004) 22: 277-291
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2004-10033-9

Photoproduction of πmesons from nuclei

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Basel, CH-4056, Basel, Switzerland
² Institut für Theoretische Physik I, Universität Giessen, D-35392, Giessen, Germany
³ Institut für Kernphysik, Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, D-55099, Mainz, Germany
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ, Glasgow, UK
⁵ II. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Giessen, D-35392, Giessen, Germany

^* e-mail: Bernd.Krusche@unibas.ch

Received: 2 February 2004
Accepted: 24 May 2004
Published online: 3 November 2004

Abstract

Photoproduction of neutral pions from nuclei (carbon, calcium, niobium, lead) has been studied for incident-photon energies from 200 MeV to 800 MeV with the TAPS detector using the Glasgow photon tagging spectrometer at the Mainz MAMI accelerator. Data were obtained for the inclusive photoproduction of neutral pions and the partial channels of quasifree single-π⁰, double-π⁰, and π⁰π^± photoproduction. They have been analyzed in terms of the in-medium behavior of nucleon resonances and the pion-nucleus interaction. They are compared to earlier measurements from the deuteron and to the predictions of a Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) transport model for photon-induced pion production from nuclei.