A study of the reaction π + p → p π + π o at 16 GeV/ c incident momentum has been made using the prism plot analysis to reject background events arising from elastic and multineutral contaminations and to separate different reaction channels ( ϱ + p, g + p, Δ + π + , Δ ++ π o , π + (p π o ) DD ). Cross sections, invariant mass distributions and production and decay angular distributions are presented. For the channel corresponding to proton diffraction dissociation strong violation of both s - and t -channel helicity conservation is found for low values of the (p π o ) mass. We demonstrate that the prism plot method provides a better separation of background events than conventional methods using kinematic cuts.

The reaction π + p→ ωΔ ++ (1236) is studied at 16 GeV/ c . Cross section, differential cross section, single and joint spin-density matrix elements are given and the correlations between the ε and Δ ++ (1236) decay angular distributions are investigated. Natural and unnatural spin-parity exchanges contribute to this reaction in roughly equal amounts. Natural exchanges lead predominantly to Δ ++ (1236) with helicity ± 3 2 , while unnatural exchanges lead predominantly to Δ ++ (1236) with helicity ± 1 2 and to ε with helicity zero. Furthermore, unnatural exchanges are small at t ′≅0.2 GeV 2 compared to other t ′ values, which may be due to the nonsense wrong-signature-zero of the B-meson exchange. Quark model relations are found to be satisfied by the data.

The reaction π + p → ϱ 0 Δ ++ (1236) at 16 GeV/ c has been studied. Cross section, differential cross section, single and joint spin-density matrix elements are given. Correlations between the ϱ 0 and Δ ++ (1236) decay distributions are observed. Unnatural spin-parity exchanges, mainly observed at small t ' values, dominate the ϱ 0 Δ ++ (1236) production. The natural exchange contributions are only (7 ± 2)% and become as important as the unnatural exchanges beyond t ' = 0.3 GeV 2 . Contributions to Δ ++ (1236) helicity 3 2 states do not exceed 20% of the total ϱ 0 Δ ++ (1236) cross section and are mainly due to unnatural exchanges.

It is found in the reactions π ± p →( π ± π + π − )p, believed to be dominated by diffraction dissociation, that the d σ d t′ distributions show a “cross-over” effect at t ′ ≈ 0.15, similar to the effect observed in elastic scattering. This gives evidence for the interference of ( ϱ 0 , B 0 ,…)-exchanges with ( P , f 0 , …) -exchanges in pion diffraction dissociation reactions. No such evidence is found for baryon dissociation, π ± p → π ± (p π + π − ), at the same energy.

The p p elastic differential cross section at 50 GeV/c has been measured in a two-arm spectrometer experiment at the CERN SPS. The | t | range covered extends from 0.7 to 5 (GeV/c. A pronounced dip-bump structure is observed with a sharp minimum at | t | = 1.5 (GeV/ c ) 2 .

Results are presented from experiment WA7 at the CERN SPS, which has measured the elastic differential cross sections of π ± p, K ± p, p p and pp at incident momen ta of 20, 30 and 50 GeV/ c . The measurements cover the momentum transfer range 0.5 < | t | < 8 (GeV/ c ) 2 , corresponding to c.m. scattering angles between 10° and 50°. The experimental set-up, trigger logic and data analysis are described. The experimental results are compared with existing meson-proton and nucleon-proton data at lower and higher energies covering the medium- and large-| t | region. Some prominent models and their predictions for elastic scattering at WA7 energies and beyond are reviewed, with emphasis on geometrical scaling, factorizing eikonal models, lowest-order QCD and other dynamical exchange-type models. Results for p p two-body annihilation into π − π + and K − K + at 30 and 50 GeV/ c , obtained in parallel with the elastic p p data, are also presented.

A description is given of an experiment to study elastic scattering of π ± , K ± and p on protons at c.m. scattering angles from 45° to 100° at incident laboratory momenta 20 GeV/ c and 30 GeV/ c . The corresponding t range is from −6.2 (GeV/ c ) 2 to −28 (GeV/ c ) 2 . There are no previous observations for these reactions in this t range. High intensity and large geometrical acceptance were required in order to measure the low cross sections. The experiment used a double-arm spectrometer. MWPCs were used for reconstruction, and threshold and differential Čerenkov counters for identification. Scintillation counters, Čerenkov counters and a hadron calorimeter were used in the trigger. The trigger logic utilized specially designed matrices and a hard wired microprocessor. The π − p elastic scattering cross sections follow approximately the dimensional counting rule from 3.5 GeV/ c .and up to 30 GeV/ c . The cross sections decrease by seven orders of magnitude in this energy range. The data is compared to quark models. None of these models give a comprehensive description of the results. However, some modifications to these models improve their consistency with the data.

The p p elastic differential cross section at 30 GeV/ c incident momentum has been measured in a two-arm spectrometer experiment (WA7) at the CERN SPS. The | t |-range covered extends from 0.5 to 5.8 (GeV/ c ) 2 . A pronounced dip-bump structure is observed, with a sharp minimum around | t | ≈ 1.7 (GeV/ c ) 2 . The results are compared with existing p p data at lower energies and with our earlier p p data at 50 GeV/ c . A number of model predictions are discussed. We also compare the p p 30 GeV/ c differential cross section with that of pp at the same momentum. Finally, the energy dependence of the p p fixed-| t | differential cross in the incident momentum range 3.6 to 50 GeV/ c is presented.

Measurements of the K - p and K + p elastic differential cross sections at 20 and 50 GeV/ c , respectively, have been made in the momentum transfer range 0.7 < ∥ t ∥ < 8.0 GeV/ c .

Elastic cross-section measurements are presented for π ± −p at 20 GeV/ c and π − −p at 30 GeV/ c incident momenta in the large angle region (50° to 90° in the c.m. system). The data are compared with published lower energy elastic cross sections. A test is made of the dimensional counting rules for π ± −p elastic scattering and some indication of a deviation from this rule is observed in the π − −p case. A comparison is also made with the predictions of the constituent interchange model. Although the broad features of the predictions are confirmed, there are some important discrepancies. Finally, the predictions of the model due to Preparata and Soffer are also compared with the new data.