Study of intranuclear collision effects in interactions ofK +/π + mesons with Al and Au nuclei at 250 GeV/c

Abstract

Multiplicity, inclusive, correlation and collective characteristics of multiparticle production processes inK+ Al,K+ Au, π+ Al and π+ Au interactions at 250 GeV/c are studied with the European Hybrid Spectrometer, providing high statistics and almost 4 π acceptance for final state charged particles. It is shown that the proton energy spectrum practically does not depend on the target atomic weight, but the proton angular distributions reveal a strongA-dependence. In a model independent way, the average number of intranuclear collisions is extracted, and it is shown that their dominant part (60% for Al and 80% for Au) is caused by interactions of the non-leading particles produced in the target fragmentation. The multiplication ratio of the produced particles for the Au nucleus changes fromR≃40 at the smallest rapidities in the target fragmentation region, down toR=0.37±0.06 at the largest rapidities in the beam fragmentation region. It is found that the average total longitudinal momentum of the charged products of the beam fragmentation depends weakly on the number of leading hadron (cluster) intranuclear collisions which are characterized by a low inelasticity coefficient 〈k〉=0.17±0.03.