Nuclear Size Determination by Neutral-Pion Photoproduction

Abstract

The angular distributions of neutral pions produced by 166-MeV bremsstrahlung on Li, Be, C, O, Mg, Al, Si, S, Ca, and Cu have been obtained by coincident detection of the pion decay photons. The density distributions of nuclear matter have been inferred from the experimental data by means of a Monte Carlo synthesis based on an impulse-approximation elastic-coherent-production model.