Associated Production in Proton-Proton Collisions

Abstract

The simplest reactions of associated production in proton-proton collisions are investigated with the aid of two simple models, which consider as relevant only the contribution due to the exchange of one intermediate $\pi$ meson or $K$ meson, respectively. The values of the total cross sections predicted by these models are calculated at various energies up to 3.5 Gev of the incident proton is the lab system. These cross sections are related to the experimental cross sections for simpler processes, namely associated production by pions (first model) and $K^{+}$-nucleon scattering (second model). Both models give the same order of magnitude for the cross sections for all reactions (${10}^{-2\mathrm{}}$ mb at lower energies, ${10}^{-1\mathrm{}}$ mb at higher energies), except for ${\Sigma }^0$ production, where the results predicted by the two models differ by a factor of 10. Some of the calculated values are affected by large errors, due to the uncertainty of the experimental data which are used.