Electromagnetic Production of Pion Pairs

The Pauli-Weisskopf theory of electromagnetic production of pion pairs has been a subject of interest in various connections for many years. Recently new interest has been stimulated in the theory because pion pair production is a possible means of investigating the - interaction. This approach, which was originally suggested by Pomeranchuk, is particularly valid in view of the increase in the cross section, when the strong pion-nucleus interaction is included, over that obtained by the original theory. The purpose of this work was to study the Pauli-Weiskopf theory with the objective of including the strong pion-nucleus interaction and developing an accurate method of obtaining the cross section for pair production in the experimentally attainable energy region. The - interaction was neglected in this work since there is insufficient information available at the present time to adequately treat this interaction.