Pion-deuteron scattering and the range of the pion-nucleon amplitude

We have studied the dependence of the pion-deuteron total cross section on the range of the off-shell pion-nucleon amplitude, using a relativistic three-body theory which has as input the six S- and P-wave pion-nucleon channels and the two S-wave nucleon-nucleon channels, but which does not include the effect of pion absorption. We found that in order to fit the total cross section data in the region of the 3,3 resonance, we need a form factor with a range in momentum space of about 1 GeV/c. NUCLEAR REACTIONS Pion-deuteron scattering; E=50-350 MeV; calculated TOT.