Central collisions of 800-GeV protons with the heavy components of nuclear emulsion, Ag107 and Br80, have been investigated to determine the characteristics of small-impact-parameter collisions and, by comparison with the analysis of inclusive proton-emulsion inelastic interactions and inelastic proton-nucleon collisions, to study the dependence of the interaction process on the mean number of intranuclear collisions 〈ν〉. The data are also compared with the results obtained in proton-emulsion collisions, both central and inclusive, at 200 GeV. The variations in the secondary-particle multiplicities and the normalized pseudorapidity density correlate with 〈ν〉 and demonstrate that proton-nucleus interactions, both central and inclusive, can be described adequately by the incoherent superposition of proton-nucleon collisions.
The production of π±,K±,p has been measured in p+Be and p+Au collisions for comparison with central Si+Au collisions. The inverse slope parameters T0 obtained by an exponential fit to the invariant cross sections in transverse mass are found to be, T0p,K+,ππ∼140–160 MeV in p+A collisions, whereas in central Si+Au collisions, T0p,K+∼200–220 MeV >T0ππ∼140–160 MeV at midrapidity. The π± and K+ distributions are shifted backwards in p+Au compared with p+Be. A gradual increase of (dn/dy)K+ per projectile nucleon is observed from p+Be to p+Au to central Si+Au collisions, while pions show no significant increase.
Multiplicity distributions, observed inK+ interactions with Al and Au nuclei at 250 GeV/c incident momentum are presented. They are analyzed in the framework of multiple collisions of the incident particle inside a nucleus. The probability distribution of the number of grey tracks is well described by the model of Andersson et al., if a negative binomial distribution is assumed for the distribution of the number of grey protons produced per elementary collision instead of the usual geometrical distribution. The analysis of the average and dispersion of the charge multiplicity distribution supports the validity of the multiple collision model, including results on correlations between forward and backward multiplicities.
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