Inclusive pion double charge exchange on 16O at 0.6–1.1 GeV

Abstract The inclusive pion double charge exchange (DCX) on oxygen nuclei has been measured in the region where additional pion production is kinematically forbidden. The experiment was performed at the ITEP PS at incident π − kinetic energies T 0 =0.59, 0.75 and 1.1 GeV. The integrated forward differential cross section was found to decrease with energy slowly. At 1.1 GeV it exceeds the theoretical prediction within the conventional sequential single charge exchange mechanism with a neutral pion in the intermediate state (Glauber elastic rescattering) by about a factor of five. The sequential mechanism with two pions in the intermediate state (Glauber inelastic rescatterings), which was proposed recently, seems to be able to explain the observed energy dependence and allows to predict the DCX cross section at higher energies.