Pion-heavy ion scattering total and inelastic cross sections for space radiation applications

Secondary pions are produced by cosmic ray proton and heavy ion induced collisions with spacecraft shielding materials and tissue. In this paper we describe methods for compiling a data-base of energy dependent pion-heavy ion inelastic sections for interactions of pions with common shielding and tissue atoms over a wide energy range (20 MeV to 100 GeV). Calculations are made in a 2nd order optical model solution to coupled-channel solutions to the Eikonal form of the nucleus-nucleus scattering amplitude, which are compared to 1st order optical model solutions. The 2nd order model takes into account two-body correlations in the target nucleus ground-state, which are ignored in the 1st order optical model. In addition we consider several empirical corrections related to nuclear medium effects and nuclear binding, which are ignored in the impulse approximation used in the optical model. We report on extensive comparisons to experimental data for energy-dependent total and absorption (inelastic) cross sections. General agreement between model and experiments within ±20% are found.