Production of deuterons and tritons in high-energy proton and pion interactions with emulsion nuclei

Abstract

From the analysis of medium-energy particles (0.41<β<0.77) produced in 23 and 24 GeV/c proton interactions with the nuclei of emulsion, 19 deuterons and 4 tritons were identified. At the most 4 deuterons can be attributed to the direct p-\(\mathcal{N}\) collision with beam protons. In the same velocity interval, a similar analysis from 17 GeV/c π− interactions yielded 11 deuterons and one triton. Deuteron production cross-section in proton interactions is found to be nearly double that in pion interactions in the momentum range investigated. Copious production of deuterons in the low-energy range is explained as due to the pick-up process by the cascade nucleons in the energy band around 600 MeV for which the cross-section is known to be appreciable.