Rapidity and multiplicity correlations in high energy hadronic collisions

Abstract

Rapidity and multiplicity correlations of particle production in high energy hadronic collisions are studied. A simple model including short range correlations in rapidity due to clustering and long range correlations due to energy conservation is able to describe the two-body correlation functions well in hadron-nucleon collisions around lab energies of 250 GeV. In this model factorial moments are calculated and compared to data. The strong rise of the factorial moments in rapidity intervals by size δy ~ 1 can be explained by long and short range correlation alone whereas the factorial moments approach a constant value at very small δy due to lack of correlations also in agreement with experiment. There is therefore no need for introducing intermittency in the particle production in hadronic collisions at these energies.