The lifetime of pions is a factor of 100 times shorter than the muon, which is itself short.
How pions can be detected at all, with so short a lifetime is a question worth asking. There is a good possibility that they are inferred – from finding muons, which can be detected. Hopefully, Ólafsson will address this issue of detection on Thursday. From: Stephen Cooke … Is It possible that the nuclei are sufficiently close that those pions or virtual ones get generated in association with one nucleus and absorbed by another either directly or by tunneling at lower energy?
