Deeply Inelastic Proton-Proton Collisions

Abstract

We measured the differential cross section for 12.4-GeV/c proton-proton inelastic scattering on circles of fixed energy loss in the cm. system. We varied the inelasticity from 8 to 94% and covered much of the angular range. For essentially all inelasticities the dependence on Pj^ is approximately e"^^-^ . The absolute value of (fu/dQdp also depends only weakly on energy loss.

Distributions in Transverse Momentum for Deeply Inelastic Hadron Collisions

“…Suggestion of a similar forward peak is apparent also in data from PP *P + anything. 3 Because only one final particle is detected in these single-arm-spectrometer experiments, there is no empirical way to ascertain whether the observed particle is scattered directly or is the decay product of a resonance. Nevertheless, there is intuitive appeal to the idea that data at very small p T 2 are of the direct variety 3 ; in particular, the very steep forward peak might be thought to reflect simple exchange-model dynamics.…”

“…y then the p T 2 distribution of its decay pion is necessarily less peripheral. 3 In other words, the pion's distribution in the iV* rest frame convoluted with the N* production distribution should lead to an overall pion distribution in p ? with diffraction constant b n <b A .…”

“…3 However, there are really too few experimental points at small p T 2 to determine a precise slope. 3 An important consistency check on our model is the observation that for protons and for pions, integrated experimental cross sections in steeply peaked forward regions are equal to within a factor of 2. 7 (4) Background spectrum.-As the Q value increases, (p T ) for decay protons and pions also increases; for large Q, the distribution do/dp T 2 has a pronounced minimum near p T 2 = 0.…”