Collective characteristics of hadron systems produced in beam fragmentation of π+p collisions at 250 GeV/c

Collective characteristics are studied of hadrons produced in beam fragmentation of non-single-diffractive π+p-interactions at 250 GeV/c. An attempt is made to obtain experimental information on the properties of leading cluster production and fragmentation. On average, the leading cluster carries 0.8±0.1 of the incident momentum, so that the mean value of the inelasticity coefficient of 〈k〉=0.2±0.1 is significantly smaller than that deduced from leading single hadron spectra. The momentum transfer distribution shows that nonsingle-diffractive processes are less peripheral than diffraction dissociation. The analysis of thrust and sphericity shows jet-like structure of pion fragmentation, that of the charge flow an average forward charge of 〈Q f 〉=0.45±0.04, in agreement with the average charge of the beam valence quarks. Our data are compared to diffraction dissociation and to the Fritiof model.