Inelastic muon-neutron scattering: Charged-hadron multiplicities and prong cross sections

Abstract

Based on approximately 10 000 inelastic muon scatters in a liquid deuterium target, we extract charged-hadron multiplicities and topological cross sections for events off the neutron in a range $0.3\le Q^2\le 4.5$ ${\mathrm{GeV}}^2$, $2.0\le W\le 4.6$ GeV. We find no significant changes in the multiplicity or topological fractional cross sections over the $Q^2$ range of our experiment. Empirically the average multiplicity off a neutron target is equal to that off a proton target over the $Q^2$ and $W$ range of our experiment.