Correlation Functions in High-Energy Multiple Production and an Extension of Feynman's Gas Analog

Abstract

A picture of multiple-production cross sections suggested by Feynman is extended to include transverse-momentum distributions and phase-space boundary effects in the single-particle distributions by introducing an external confining potential on an axially symmetric plasma. Two-particle correlation functions are discussed in such an analog system, using closure approximations such as the Debye-Hückel equation for a nonuniform plasma, with the interparticle potentials obtained from two-particle elastic scattering properties. Effective correlation lengths are found to depend on the single-particle distribution in important ways. In particular, the central-region correlations are of shorter range than those at large transverse momentum or near phase-space boundaries in certain cases. A bootstrap mechanism for indefinitely rising Regge trajectories is also outlined.