Characteristics of clusters produced in particle–nucleus interactions at 24, 50, and 400 GeV

Abstract

Some useful and interesting characteristics of clusters produced in 24 and 400 GeV p–nucleus and 50 GeV π−–nucleus interactions have been investigated. The maximum number of charged shower pions constituting a cluster is three at 24 GeV, whereas at 50 GeV and beyond, this number is observed to be four. Further, the results reveal that the cluster size is independent of the star size, nature, and energy of the incident hadron beyond 50 GeV projectile energy. This observation is in accord with the "big hadron" approach suggested for explaining multiparticle production where the centre of the nucleus is visualized to behave like a "big hadron" and the interaction is envisaged to proceed via hadron – "big hadron" collisions.