title: Total and differential cross sections for pion production via coherent isobar and giant resonance formation in heavy-ion collisions.
abstract: A quantal many-body formalism is presented that investigates pion production through the coherent formation of a nucleonic isobar in the projectile and its subsequent decay to various pion charge states along with concomitant excitation of the target to a coherent spin-isospin giant resonance via a peripheral collision of relativistic heavy ions.  Total cross sections as a function of the incident energy per nucleon and Lorentz-invariant differential cross sections as a function of pion energy and angle are calculated.  It is shown that the pion angular distributions, in coincidence with the target giant resonance excitations, might provide a well-defined signature for these coherent processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Idaho, Moscow 83843, USA.
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Deutchman
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Norbury
authors.forename: L W
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: Townsend
mesh_terms: D019471:Elementary Particle Interactions; D004601:Elementary Particles; D008433:Mathematics; D008651:Mesons; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009686:Nuclear Physics