Role of heavy-meson exchange in pion production near threshold

C. J. Horowitz, H. O. Meyer, David K. Griegel

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

103 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recent calculations of s-wave pion production have severely underestimated the accurately known pp→ppπ0 total cross section near threshold. In these calculations, only the single-nucleon axial-charge operator is considered. We have calculated, in addition to the one-body term, the two-body contributions to this reaction that arise from the exchange of mesons. We find that the inclusion of the scalar σ-meson exchange current (and lesser ocntributions from other mesons) increases the cross section by about a factor of 5 and leads to excellent agreement with the data. The results are sensitive neither to changes in the distorting potential that generates the NN wave functions nor to different choices for the meson-nucleon form factors.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1337-1346
Number of pages10
JournalPhysical Review C - Nuclear Physics
Volume49
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1994
Externally publishedYes

Funding

FundersFunder number
Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences9015957

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