Photoproduction of neutral pion pairs in the Coulomb field of the nucleus

The total cross section for Coulomb photoproduction of neutral pion pairs in the reaction is estimated within the effective chiral Lagrangian approach. The amplitude of with one off-shell photon is calculated at in the momentum expansion; in addition, nuclear absorption is taken into account. Besides its experimental feasibility, the results of the calculation demonstrate that the reaction is a powerful source of information on the process close to threshold.