Fragment spectra in high energy proton-nucleus collisions

Abstract

We propose a two-component model for the proton-nucleus collisions. One of the components is a compressed tube of hadronic matter which decays into the fast particles over a long span of time. The other is a partially thermalized remnant nucleus. Its thermalized region evaporates into nucleons, which strike at the undisturbed region of the remnant nucleus and break it into the nuclear fragments. We assume that a fragment is formed by the recombination of an evaporation nucleon with a piece of the remnant nucleus which is at rest in the rest frame of the remnant. In this way we obtain a good description of the fragment mass dependence of the apparent temperature.