We propose a new experiment for decay pion spectroscopy of light hypernuclei at electron- and proton-beam facilities, using the recoil distance technique for separation of produced hypernuclei and a magnetic spectrometer for precise measurement of the decay pion momentum. Low-pressure MWPCs are advocated for low-energy recoil detection as they provide position and time information and are highly insensitive to gamma-ray and electron background. The position and timing characteristics of such a recoil detector were studied using ~5 MeV {\alpha}-particles. By using the present proposed approach the rate of the detected hypernuclei can be increased by one-to-two orders of magnitude compared to a recent experiment carried out at the MAMI electron accelerator in Mainz. The possibility of realizing a high luminosity decay pion spectroscopy experiment with proton beams is also discussed.
@article{arxiv.1902.03075,
title = {Decay pion spectroscopy: a new approach},
author = {A. Margaryan and R. Ajvazyan and N. Grigoryan and V. Kakoyan and V. Khacatryan and H. Vardanyan and S. Zhamkochyan and P. Achenbach and J. Pochodzalla and S. N. Nakamura and S. Nagao and Y. Toyama and J. R. M. Annand and K. Livingston and R. Montgomery},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.03075},
year = {2019}
}