LVI. The production of mesons in proton-proton collisions

Abstract

Summary A method of estimating the cross-sections for meson production in proton-proton collisions near the threshold is outlined, together with detailed calculations for spin zero meson fields under certain simplifying assumptions concerning the nuclear forces. It is found that, for the final continuous neutron-proton system, a low energy for the neutron-proton relative motion is favoured; this, together with a large contribution from transitions to a final bound deuteron, leads to a meson spectrum well peaked at the highest allowed energies in agreement with recent experiments. While the total cross-section is dependent more on the shape and size of the inter-nucleon potential than on the meson type, the spectrum at a given angle and, more particularly, the angular distribution are critically dependent on the parity of the produced meson. Comparison with experiment favours scalar mesons.