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Positive pions produced in a cold, high-pressure hydrogen gas target by the 500-Mev bremsstrahlung of the CalTech synchrotron, have been analyzed by a large magnetic spectrometer. The photoproduction cross section has been measured as a function of photon energy at laboratory angles of 12.5°, 30°, 51°, 73°, 104°, 140°, and 180°. The energy region covered depends somewhat on the angle, but is typically from 200 to 470 Mev. From these excitation curves the angular distribution of the photopions in the center of momentum system is obtained for various photon energies, and these angular distributions are analyzed in the form A+Bcosθ+Ccos2θ. The angular distribution has a backward maximum at low energies and a forward maximum at high energies, the coefficient B changing sign at about 340 Mev. The total cross section shows a striking maximum near 290 Mev, of magnitude 205×10−30 cm2, and falls off above the maximum faster than λ2.

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The photoproduction of charged pions from deuterium has been studied using a "monochromatic" gamma-ray beam of 292±8 Mev. The energy spectra of both positive and negative pions at the laboratory angle of 120° were determined and both agreed within experimental error with that predicted by the theory of Lax and Feshbach. The negative-to-positive ratio at 120° was 1.07±0.16, and within experimental error, was independent of meson energy. At an angle of 73° the ratio was 0.90±0.23 for 98.7 Mev mesons. The measured negative-to-positive ratio disagrees both with the simple classical picture of Brueckner and the phenomenological theory of Watson. Some results on the ratio using a bremsstrahlung beam are given.

An accurate measurement of the differential cross section for the photoproduction of positive pions from protons has been made at the Berkeley synchrotron for photon energies of 260 and 290 Mev. The mesons were produced in a thin-walled liquid-hydrogen target, and the meson-detection apparatus utilized the characteristic decay of the pion. The measurements were done in two steps, from 0° to 50° with equipment specifically designed to reduce a very high forward-angle positron background, and from 30° to 160° with equipment whose efficiency and solid angle could be accurately determined. The abrupt flattening of the observed cross section in the region forward of 40° is due to "photoelectric ejection" of pions from the cloud surrounding the nucleon. The results are compared to the theory of photo-production derived from the dispersion relations, and the agreement is satisfactory within the limitations of the theory.

The ratio of the yields of negative and positive pions photoproduced in deuterium has been measured at six photon energies between 500 and 1000 Mev and at seven angles between 20° and 160° in the center-of-momentum system of the photon and target nucleon. Pions were selected with a magnetic spectrometer and identified using momentum and specific ionization in a scintillation counter telescope. The spectator model of the deuteron was used to identify the photon energy. Statistical errors assigned to the π−π+ ratio range between five and fifteen percent. The results of the present experiment join smoothly with the low-energy π−π+ ratios obtained by Sands et al. At high energies the π−π+ ratio varies from 0.5 at forward angles and energies near 900 Mev to 2.5 at 160° c.m. and energies 600 to 800 Mev. The cross sections for π− photo-production from neutrons have been derived from the π−π+ ratio and the CalTech π+ photoproduction data. The angular distributions for π− production are considerably different from those for π+; there is, for example, a systematic increase at the most backward angles. The energy dependence of the total cross section for π− is similar to that for π+, although the second resonance peak occurs at a slightly lower energy, and at 900 and 1000 Mev the π− cross section is smaller by a factor 1.6. A comparison is made of the cross sections for π+ photoproduction from hydrogen and deuterium, although the accuracy of this comparison is not high.

Measurements of the cross section for photoproduction of [...] mesons from hydrogen have been extended to angles as small as 5[...] in the c. m. system, using a magnetic spectrometer. At a photon energy of 1025 Mev, the cross section decreases as the angle changes from 5[degrees] to 13[degrees], reaching a minimum before increasing again to the maximum near 40[degrees] which has been previously observed (5). Less extensive measurements at energies 700, 800, 900, and 960 Mev all show a similar rapid decrease with angle in the angular range less than 15[degrees] c.m., although below 960 Mev no actual minimum is observed. These effects at small angles arise presumably from the "retardation term", or "meson current" term and its interference with other contributions to the photoproduction amplitude. It is interesting that a minimum near 15[degrees] is characteristic of the pure Born approximation (retardation term plus "S-wave"). Values of the 0[degree] cross section that are much more accurate than previous estimates have been obtained. An attempt has been made to extract a value of the pion-nucleon coupling constant by an extrapolation into the region cos [...]. Using the best set of data, the value obtained was [...].

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A magnetic spectrometer and counter telescope system was used to detect positive pions photoproduced singly in a liquid hydrogen target. Measurements of the differential cross section were made at mean laboratory photon energies, k = 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 GeV and in the angular range from 5° to 165 ° in the center-of-momentum system of the pion. The shape of the angular distribution of the differential cross sections at each value of k is very similar to that of the previously measured distribution at k = 1.0 GeV. The angular distributions were integrated to give the total cross sections. The third pion-nucleon "resonance" peak is seen to be very close to k = 1.0 GeV. A leveling off of the total cross section at k = 1.4 GeV may be due to the fourth "resonance". The accurate small angle data at k = 1.1 and 1.2 GeV permitted a reasonable extrapolation of the differential cross section to the pion-nucleon pole. The value of the pion-nucleon coupling constant, f, was extracted from this extrapolation. The result was f^2 = 0.078 ± 0.011.