Deuteron Production in Proton-Nucleus Collisions at High Energies

Abstract

A model for the production of deuterons and nuclei of He3 and HS in high energy nuclear collisions is presented. The model is based on an interpretation of the hie;h energy nucleon-nucleus collisions as composite collisions of the incident nucleon with a number of target nucleons rather than as a succession of individual collisions. After such a composite collision it is assumed that the incident nucleon and the compound of struck nucleons go into excited states, an extension of the so called 'excited nucleon model' for N-N collisions. From the decay of the excited compound of struck nucleons, we can get, in addition to pions and such other secondary particles, also bound systems of nucleons, like deuterons, as a result of final state interactions. Calculations based on the model seem to be capable of explaining the observed features of the production of deuterons in 25 Gev proton collisions.