Double pion photoproduction off nuclei - Are there effects beyond final-state interaction?

2013

Photoproduction of $\pi^{0}\pi^{0}$ and $\pi^{0}\pi^{\pm}$ pairs from nuclei has been measured over a wide mass range ($^2$H, $^{7}$Li, $^{12}$C, $^{40}$Ca, and $^{\rm nat}$Pb) for photon energies from threshold to 600 MeV. The experiments were performed at the MAMI accelerator in Mainz, using the Glasgow photon tagging spectrometer and a 4$\pi$ electromagnetic calorimeter consisting of the Crystal Ball and TAPS detectors. A shift of the pion-pion invariant mass spectra for heavy nuclei to small invariant masses has been observed for $\pi^0$ pairs but also for the mixed-charge pairs. The precise results allow for the first time a model-independent analysis of the influence of pion final-sta…