Pionization effects in nucleon-nucleus scattering

A simple unitary model for meson production in nucleon-nucleon scattering is extended to nucleon-nucleus scattering. In the high energy limit the produced mesons remain coherent with the projectile over the entire depth of the nucleus and tend to increase the total cross sections. A crude estimate of the size of the effect gives an increase of the total cross section for proton-deuteron scattering of 13 mb at NAL energies.