Fit to the N-particle cross sections in a model with SU(3) singlet uncorrelated fireballs

Abstract

We reproduce the cross sections σ n c for n c charged particle production in high energy pp scattering, and thus obtain quasi-scaling for the KNO function 〈 n c〉 σ n c / σ inel over the energy range 50–300 GeV/ c. This result is obtained in a model in which the multiperipheral secondaries originate from a chain of uncorrelated fireballs, decaying into pairs of octet vector mesons in an SU(3) singlet state, and the secondaries of diffractive type follow a Poisson distribution. At each energy, the average number 〈 n c〉 of charged secondaries is taken from experiment. Then all cross sections are obtained using only one free parameter.