Abstract
Nuclear photoabsorption around the pion threshold is schematised as photoproduction of a pion which undergoes final-state interaction with the nucleus, accounted for by the pion optical potential. It is shown that the real pion photoproduction and exchange effects are naturally described by the same mechanism with a non-static pion. The complementarity of photoabsorption to pion physics and its usefulness in gaining new information about pion-nucleus dynamics are stressed.