Abstract
A comparison is made between Fermi's theory and Lewis, Oppenheimer, and Wouthuysen's theory of multiple meson production in high energy nucleon-nucleon collisions, and an analysis is made of some typical examples. The main difference between the two theories concerns the Lorentz covariance of the matrix element which is related, in Fermi's theory, to the Lorentz contraction of the volume in which the thermal equilibrium of virtual mesons is supposed to be established, and to the Lorentz invariant phase volume in L.O.W.'s theory. It is reasonable to take the contracted diameter of the volume in Fermi's theory to be of the order of the wavelength of the emitted meson (not that of the incident nucleon), and as a result both theories can explain to some extent the multiplicity and angular distribution. The main difference lies in the average energy of the emitted mesons in the center-of-mass system as a function of multiplicity.
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