Meson Exchange Currents in Pion Double Charge Exchange at High Energies

Abstract

In this letter we study the high energy behavior of the forward differential cross section for the ${}^{18}O({\pi }^{+},{\pi }^{-}{)}^{18}Ne$ double charge exchange reaction. We have evaluated the sequential and the meson exchange current mechanisms. The meson exchange current contribution shows a very weak energy dependence and becomes relevant at incident pion kinetic energies above 600 MeV.

Comments: 7 pages,2 postscripts figures,uses amsbsy LATEX package