Pion double charge exchange in heavy nuclei

Double charge exchange (DCX) is sensitive to detailed nuclear structure information such as nucleon-nucleon correlations, pairing effects, and shell structure. Angular distributions of DCX pions on nuclei to well defined final states are planned for the forthcoming operation of the Omicron spectrometer at CERN. The authors investigate whether these experiments DCX could be useful for studying the pionic degrees of freedom in nuclei by considering the effects of pion condensation in heavy nuclei. An order of magnitude estimate for DCX is obtained by comparing a Monte Carlo cascade calculation with the prediction of an oversimplified model describing the scattering of an incident pion of the condensed pion target. (21 refs).