Multiplicity characteristics of 12C-nucleus interactions at 4.5 A GeV c−1

Abstract

An attempt is made to study the multiplicity distributions of different charged secondaries, the dispersions of their distributions, and intercorrelations between them in 12C-nucleus reactions at 4.5 GeV per nucleon. The results reveal that the value of [Formula: see text] does not depend on the projectile mass. The constancy of [Formula: see text] shows that, irrespective of the amount of average energy imparted to the target nuclei for their excitation, the temperature of the residual nucleus never exceeds some critical temperature. However, the value of [Formula: see text] is found to increase with increasing mass of the projectile. This observation is in accord with the prediction of the fireball model. The angular distribution of charged shower particles in terms of the pseudorapidity variable, η, was also investigated. The results suggest that there are different degrees of stopping for different thicknesses of the nuclear matter traversed by the projectile. In general, our results are similar to those obtained for hadronic interactions. The results are also compared with those obtained in hadron–nucleus collisions in the energy range ~6−400 GeV.