Sources of leading pions in. pi. /sup +/p and. pi. /sup -/p interactions at 16 and 40 GeV/c

We investigate the sources of leading charged pions in ..pi../sup +/p and ..pi../sup -/p interactions at 16 and 40 GeV/c, respectively. We find that approximately 50--60% of the leading particles (xL-italic>0.4) with charge unlike that of the incident pion are produced by decay of rho/sup 0/, f, and g resonances. The probabilities of double inelastic charge exchange decrease with increase of xL-italic and depend little on the energy and charge of the incident pion.