Inelastic scattering of. pi. /sup +/ and. pi. /sup -/ mesons from /sup 3/He and /sup 4/He at energies of 350, 400, and 475 MeV

The momentum distributions of pions inelastically scattered from /sup 3/He and /sup 4/He were measured for incident energies of 350, 400, and 475 MeV. Pions were detected in a magnetic spectrometer at scattering angles of 60/sup 0/, 90/sup 0/, and 120/sup 0/. The spectra show quasifree scattering from single nucleons along with a substantial component of lower momentum pions. The results are compared to a simple impulse approximation model, which accounts for the principal features of the data, but does not reproduce the low momentum tail even with the inclusion of multiple scattering.