INELASTIC HADRON-NUCLEUS INTERACTIONS AT 20 AND 37 GEV-C

The experiment studies charged particle production for π-, K-, and p interactions on nuclei at 20 and 37 GeV/c at the CERN SPS. A non-magnetic detector, consisting of CsI(Tl) scintillation and lucite Čerenkov counters, distinguishes between fast particles, mainly pions, and slow particles, mainly nucleons, with a cut at velocity β ≈ 0.7. Angular distributions, multiplicity distributions and correlations of slow and fast particles were analysed. It is shown that the measurement of the correlations can provide a critical test for different theoretical models of the hadron-nucleus interaction. At the energies studied so far a systematic deviation from KNO scaling is observed. This gives further support to the standard picture" of the hadron-nucleus interaction and it contrasts with predictions of the coherent-tube model. The regularity observed for the angular distribution of fast secondaries as a function of the number of slow particles can only be explained by combining features predicted by different models. © 1979."