Data on multiplicities of charged particles produced in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at 200 GeV per nucleon are presented. It is shown that the mean multiplicity of negative particles is proportional to the mean number of nucleons participating in the collision both for nucleus-nucleus and proton-nucleus collisions. The apparent consistency of pion multiplicity data with the assumption of an incoherent superposition of nucleon-nucleon collisions is critically discussed.
The neutral π0 and η mesons are studied in 197Au−197Au collisions at an incident energy of 800AMeV, substantially below the threshold for η production in N−N collisions. While the gross π0 multiplicity increases almost linearly with the number of participant nucleons, the multiplicities of η and hard π0 mesons show a stronger than linear dependence. The nonlinearity is governed by the average transverse-mass excess 〈mt〉−(s−2mN) of the mesons and is insensitive to their final-state interaction in the nuclear medium.
The collisions ofp,2H,4He and C with carbon and tantalum nuclei at 4.2 GeV/c per nucleon as well as the collisionsp-C andp-Ta at 10 GeV/c from 2-m propane bubble chamber have been studied. New results on nuclear stopping have been obtained from the examination of proton rapidity distributions and average rapidity of leading protons for collisions of various degree of centrality: our study points out that a proton projectile is fully stopped in the centralp-Ta collisions at 4.2 GeV/c but only partly stopped at 10 Gev/c. The proton multiplicity in the centralp-Ta collisions at 10 GeV/c can be described by the binomial distribution,P(n), which expresses the probability that the projectile meetsn protons among the nucleons being along the diameter of a target nucleus.
Emission of intermediate mass fragments (IMFs) (Z>~3) from central collisions of 40Ar+45Sc (E/A=35–115 MeV), 58Ni+58Ni (E/A=35–105 MeV), and 86Kr+93Nb (E/A=35–95 MeV) was studied. For each system, the average number of IMFs per event increased with beam energy, reached a maximum, and then decreased. The beam energy of peak IMF production increased linearly with the combined mass of the system. The number of IMFs emitted at the peak also increased with the system mass. Percolation calculations showed a weaker dependence of the peak beam energy and the number of IMFs on the total mass of the system.
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