Scaling behavior of average multiplicities from large hadronic masses and increase of inelasticity with energy

Abstract

For processes p+p → M x+p, there is an empirical approximate scaling property for the average multiplicity of charged particles, 〈 n( M x 2, s)〉, observed in large missing masses, M x. We use this and an impact-parameter representation for the distribution of the directly measurable variable, M x s , which is related to the collision inelasticity, to predict an increase in the mean inelasticity in going from s ⋍ 30 to 540 GeV , due to the empirically more opaque inelastic overlap function at 540 GeV.