Tests expérimentaux de certaines hypothèses de symétrie relatives aux interactions fortes

Abstract

Various tests for the global symmetry and for the Salam-Polkinghorne assumption are proposed. In the high energy reactions considered, such as antibaryon production, it is expected that the global symmetry might be more apparent than in reactions involving K mesons at low energies. While the tests for the universality of the pion-hyperon coupling are described by equalities, those which apply to a comparison between the pion-hyperon and pion-nucleon couplings are expressed in terms of inequalities between cross-sections for different processes. This is a consequence of indiscernibility and of the presence of the target nucleon in the initial state. These inequalities might, however, prove to give rather simple tests as they hold independently of the number of emitted pions. The tests for the Salam-Polkinghorne assumption are chosen so as to give a lower limit on the number of Ξ's appearing in a reaction, while the previously proposed tests gave an upper limit. Finally phase space effects are briefly discussed.