Slow-proton production from neutron targets at 100 and 400 GeV/c

Abstract

We study the production of slow protons from neutron targets in the reaction $p+n\ensuremath{\rightarrow}p+X$ at 100 and 400 GeV/c and in the reaction ${\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}+n\ensuremath{\rightarrow}p+X$ at 100 GeV/c in the kinematic region $|t|<1.0$ ${\mathrm{GeV}}^{2}$. The data are observed to scale as a function of $\frac{{M}^{2}}{s}$ and $t$. We extract an effective Regge trajectory from the $\mathrm{pn}$ data of ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{\mathrm{eff}}(t)=(0.26\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.04)+(1.07\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.11)t$ and obtain a similar result with the ${\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}n$ data. We conclude that Reggeized one-pion exchange alone is not sufficient to describe these reactions.