Production of multiparticle final states by coherent excitation of projectiles in nuclear targets

Abstract

The production of multiparticle final states on nuclear targets via multiple coherent excitation of the projectile is developed. By coherent excitation we mean that class of production models including fragmentation models or diffractive excitation models. It is found that both the rapidity distribution of secondaries in inclusive reactions and the multiplicities can be calculated, and new features of the excitation models are revealed. The calculable quantities are found to depend only weakly on the atomic number of the target; in particular, the single-particle distribution in the target fragmentation region grows roughly as ${A}^{\frac{1}{4}}$. An amusing possibility of boosting effective beam energy for resonance production by using nuclear targets emerges.