Average formation lengths of baryons and antibaryons in a string model

Abstract

In this work it is continued the investigation of the space-time scales of the hadronization process in the framework of string model. The average formation lengths of several widely using species of baryons (antibaryons) such as $p$ ($\bar{p}$), $n$ ($\bar{n}$), $\Delta$ ($\bar{\Delta}$), $\Lambda$ ($\bar{\Lambda}$) and $\Sigma$ ($\bar{\Sigma}$) are studied. It is shown that they depend from electrical charges or, more precise, from quark contents of the hadrons. In particular, the average formation lengths of positively charged hadrons, for example protons, are considerably larger than of their negatively charged antiparticles, antiprotons. This statement is fulfilled for all nuclear targets and any value of the Bjorken scaling variable $x_{Bj}$. The main mechanism is direct production. Additional production mechanism in result of decay of resonances gives small contribution. It is shown that the average formation lengths of protons (antiprotons) are slowly rising (decreasing) functions of $x_{Bj}$, the ones of neutrons and antineutrons are slowly decreasing functions of $x_{Bj}$. The shape and behavior of average formation lengths for baryons qualitatively coincide with the ones for pseudoscalar mesons obtained earlier.