  In order to study the Sigma-nucleus optical potential, we measured inclusive
(pi^-,K^+) spectra on medium-to-heavy nuclear targets: CH_2, Si, Ni, In and Bi.
The CH_2 target was used to calibrate the excitation energy scale by using the
elementary process p + pi^- -> K^+ + Sigma^-, where the C spectrum was also
extracted. The calibration was done with +-0.1 MeV precision. The angular
distribution of the elementary cross section was measured, and agreed well with
the previous bubble chamber data, but with better statistics, and the
magnitudes of the cross sections of the measured inclusive (pi^-,K^+) spectra
were also well calibrated. All of the inclusive spectra were found to be
similar in shape at a region near to the Sigma^- binding energy threshold,
showing a weak mass-number dependence on the magnitude of the cross section.
The measured spectra were compared with a theoretical calculation performed
within the framework of the Distorted Wave Impulse Approximation (DWIA). It has
been demonstrated that a strongly repulsive \sig-nucleus potential with a
non-zero size of the imaginary part is required to reproduce the shape of the
measured spectra.
