Abstract
We have used the Fermilab 30-in. bubble-chamber-hybrid spectrometer to study neutral-strange-particle production in the interactions of 200-GeV/c protons and and mesons with nuclei of gold, silver, and magnesium. Average multiplicities and inclusive cross sections for and are measured, and a power law is found to give a good description of their dependence. The exponent characterizing the dependence is consistent with being the same for and production, and also the same for proton and beams. Average and multiplicities, as well as their ratio, have been measured as functions of the numbers of projectile collisions and secondary collisions in the nucleus, and indicate that rescattering contributes significantly to enhancement of production but not to production. The properties of events with multiple or also corroborate this conclusion. rapidities are in the central region and decrease gently with increasing , while rapidities are in the target-fragmentation region and are independent of . and multiplicities increase with the rapidity loss of the projectile, but their rapidities do not.
- Received 21 August 1991
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.45.734
©1992 American Physical Society