Analysis of Properties of Secondary Particles in Nucleon-Nucleon Collisions at Very High Energy

Abstract

Momentum measurements were made on the individual secondary particles emitted in the "outer" cone of the $S$-star. A lower limit to the momentum of the particles in the "inner" cone was obtained. The transformation from the laboratory system to the center-of-mass system can be made, using suitable approximations, on the assumption that all charged secondaries are pions. This leads to a symmetrical angular and energy distribution with all particles included in a forward or backward cone of half-angle 20°. The results are compared with various multiple production theories. It is possible to infer that there is no more than one pair of particles of protonic mass among the secondaries and that even the presence of one pair would violate symmetry. The number of $K$-mesons must also be small. The methods of analysis should be useful on other events in this energy range.