On the longitudinal momentum distributions of particles produced in high energy nucleon–nucleus collisions

Abstract

Experimental results on longitudinal momentum distributions of pions, protons, deuterons, tritons, and 3He produced in the interactions of 24 GeV/c protons with the Ag and Br nuclei of nuclear emulsion are presented. The variation of [Formula: see text] with the shower multiplicity, the angle of emission, and the mass of the particles has been studied. Many characteristics of pions have been found to be similar to those produced in hadron–hadron collisions. The results on pions suggest that perhaps the multiparticle production in nucleon–nucleus collisions takes place via a two-step mechanism.