Formation of multibaryon clusters in collisions of high energy hadrons and nuclei with carbon and neon nuclei

Abstract

Formation of multibaryon clusters in 4 He + 12 C and 12 C + 12 C collisions at 4.2A GeV/c, and in π- + 12 C and p + 20 Ne collisions at 40 and 300 GeV/c, respectively, is studied using universal binary B algorithm of separation of clusters in 4-velocity space. The masses and widths of multibaryon clusters increase linearly with an increase in the number of protons (np) in a cluster. The dependences of width of clusters on np in π- + 12 C and p + 20 Ne collisions differ noticeably from the corresponding dependences in 4 He + 12 C and 12 C + 12 C collisions. In nucleus–nucleus collisions, the widths of clusters are significantly larger and grow more rapidly, as the number of protons in a cluster increases, as compared to hadron–nucleus collisions. This result is in line with the fact that, in case of identical target nuclei, the degree of "destruction" of a target nucleus is greater in case of nucleus–nucleus collisions as compared to hadron–nucleus collisions. The lifetimes of multibaryon clusters are of the same order of magnitude with those of strongly decaying baryon resonances. The lifetime of clusters decreases with an increase in np.