Electromagnetic properties of the πNN system. III

As in a previous study of real pion photoproduction reactions the author has expanded the deuteron photodisintegration amplitude in terms of the leading diagrams. Above the pion production threshold and in the Δ(1236) resonance region the pion reabsorption amplitude dominates the cross section: a virtual pion is created at one nucleon and is reabsorbed by the other. It is shown that the model provides an accurate way to handle this effect, which is closely related to the meson exchange currents. Extending results to the low energy region, the same agreement with the experimental data is obtained as in the earlier more classical calculations. The model reproduces the available experimental data from threshold up to about Esub(γ) = 800 MeV. The sensitivity to the choice of the deuteron wave function as well as the influence of the rho-exchange mechanism are discussed. (Auth.)