Angular Correlations in the Three-Pion System and the Diffractive Dissociation of a Pion

Abstract

We study the process of diffractive dissociation of a pion, $\pi +N\to 3\pi +N^{\prime }$, without assuming that the target interacts coherently. We have found a general form of some angular correlations of the three pions when they are in a state of total angular momentum less than 3. It is shown that these angular correlations either depend solely on the dynamics of the crossed channel or, if they depend also on the dynamics of the $3\pi$ system, they do so in a straight forward way.