  The pion production by sigma decay and its relation with chiral symmetry
restoration in a hot and dense matter are investigated in the framework of the
Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. The decay rate for the process sigma -> 2pion to the
lowest order in a 1/N_c expansion is calculated as a function of temperature T
and chemical potential mu. The thermal and nonthermal enhancements of pions
generated by the decay before and after the freeze-out present only in the
crossover region of the chiral symmetry transition. The strongest nonthermal
enhancement is located in the vicinity of the endpoint of the first-order
transition.
