Mean normalized shower multiplicity in inelastic hadron–nucleus interactions at high energies and multiparticle production mechanisms

Abstract

This paper presents a detailed comparison of the recent experimental data on mean normalized shower multiplicity in proton–emulsion interactions (22.6–400 GeV/c) with the predictions of current theories of multiparticle production in hadron–nucleus interactions. It has been observed that the data favour both the Fishbane–Trefil two-phase model (TEM) and the Fan diagram dominance model (FDDM) over a wide range of target nuclei, although the agreement with the FDDM seems to be better.