THE PP-]PP-PI(0) REACTION NEAR THE KINEMATICAL THRESHOLD

The reaction pp --> pp pi(o) has been measured using electron-cooled protons incident on an internal gas-jet target at seven different incident beam energies, from 280.7 MeV (1 MeV above the reaction threshold) up to 310.2 MeV. The pions were measured by their decay photons. In the overlapping energy region, the measured total cross sections agree with those measured in a recent Indiana experiment. The angular distributions are consistent with a P-3(o) --> S-1(soso) transition in the full energy range studied. The kinematical distributions are well described when taking into account the final state and the Coulomb interactions.