The inclusive cross section times branching ratio for J/ψ→e + e − has been measured in the forward region in the UA6 experiment for p p and pp collisions at √ s = 24.3 GeV. The ratio of the pp to p p cross sections is found to be 0.76 ± 0.14 ± 0.06. This demonstrates that gluon-gluon fusion dominates over quark-antiquark annihilation in the formation of the c c state.
Direct photon production cross sections obtained in high statistics p ̄ p and pp collisions at s =24.3 GeV at the CERN SPS are used in a next-to-leading order QCD analysis. From the cross section difference σ( p ̄ p → γX)−σ(pp → γX) and quark distributions measured in deep inelastic scattering, a determination of the strong coupling constant, α s , is performed via a measurement of Λ (4) MS . This measurement yields a value Λ (4) MS = 210±22 ( stat. )±44 ( syst. ) +105 −36 ( theo. ) MeV. The corresponding value of α s expressed at M 2 Z is α s (M 2 Z )=0.1112 ±0.0016 ( stat. ) ±0.0033 ( syst. ) +0.0077 −0.0034 ( theo. ) .
Inclusive π 0 and η production at large transverse momentum were studied in both p̄p and pp interactions at √ s = 24.3 GeV. The experiment was performed using an internal molecular hydrogen gas jet target in the CERN SPS collider. No significant differences between production in p̄p and pp were observed in the transverse momentum range 2.5 < P T < 5.1 GeV/ c .