Study of the production of three charged pions in pn annihilation at 3 GeV/c

Abstract We have measured 1320 events from the reaction p n → π + π − π − at 2.98 GeV/ c incident momentum (2.76 GeV total c.m. energy). The regular structure of zeros present in the three-pion Dalitz plot at lower energies is not found at this energy, except for a depopulation of events at m 2 (π + π 1 − ) = m 2 (π + π 2 − ) ⋍ 1.1 GeV 2 . The Dalitz plot population presents other structures which appear to be correlated with the angular variables describing the reaction.