Probing proton halos through pion photoproduction

Charged pion photoproduction is proposed as a new method to study halo nuclei. In particular, it is demonstrated that the reaction 17O(gamma,pi^-)17F(1/2+, 0.495 MeV) is well-suited to investigate the well-known proton halo in 17F which is not amenable to radioactive beam experiments. The cross sections are shown to be very sensitive to the halo structure of the loosely bound proton.