CHINESE JOURNAL OF PHYSICS

VOL. 53, NO. 5

October 2015

Multiplicities of Forward - Backward Relativistic Charged Particles Produced

in 32 S-Emulsion Interactions at 200 AGeV/c
Mir Hashim Rasool,1, M. Ayaz Ahmad,2 Om Veer Singh,1 and Shaq Ahmad1
1

Department of Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202002, India

2
Physics Department, Faculty of Science, University of Tabuk,
P. O. Box 741 Zip 71491, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia
(Received April 14, 2015)

Experimental data on relativistic shower particles emitted in the forward (lab < 90)
and backward (lab 90) hemispheres in the interactions of a 200 AGeV/c 32 S beam with
emulsion nuclei was obtained. The experimental multiplicity distributions (NsF , NsB ) of
relativistic shower particles emitted in the forward (lab < 90) and backward (lab 90)
hemispheres produced in the interactions of a 32 S projectile with CNO, AgBr, and Em
are presented and analyzed. The experimental results have been compared with the data
generated with the computer code FRITIOF based on the Lund Monte Carlo Model. The
FRITIOF model is useful in classifying the particle emission into the forward hemisphere
(FHS) and backward hemisphere (BHS). The correlations between the relativistic charged
particles emitted in the forward and backward hemispheres have been investigated. The
average multiplicities of particles emitted in the forward and backward hemispheres have
been studied as a function of the projectile mass number. Also the asymmetry factor (m =
NsB NsF ) m-distribution for dierent grey particle intervals i.e., Ng intervals is studied, and
the ratio NsF /NsB as a function of Ng has been studied to show a Gaussian behaviour. Finally
the scaling of the multiplicity distributions of the relativistic shower particles produced in
both the forward and backward hemispheres is observed to obey the KNO scaling law.
DOI: 10.6122/CJP.20150629

PACS numbers: 25.75.-q, 25.70.Pq

I. INTRODUCTION
Most of the experiments on high energy hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions [15] were carried out to study the characteristics of multiparticle production, mainly
for the forward emitted particles. During the last few years, the production of backward
particles at relativistic energies has received considerable experimental and theoretical attention [612]. The primary reason for studying the emission of relativistic hadrons from
nuclei in the backward direction is that in free nucleon-nucleon collisions such production is
kinematically restricted. Emission of relativistic hadrons beyond this kinematic limit may
then be evidence for an exotic production mechanism, such as production from clusters [8
10, 13]. Baldin et al. [10] argued that simple Fermi motion could not account for such
backward hadron emission. They stated that the dominant mechanism for such production
was an interaction between the incident nucleons from the projectile and multinucleon clus

Electronic address: hrasool23@gmail.com

http://PSROC.phys.ntu.edu.tw/cjp

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c 2015 THE PHYSICAL SOCIETY

OF THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA

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ters in the target, referred to as cumulative production. In this paper, we analyze the data
on shower particles produced in both the forward (lab < 90) and backward (lab 90)
hemispheres, where lab is the emission angle in the laboratory system from the interaction
of a 32 S projectile with a nuclear emulsion at 200 AGeV/c.
The experimental multiplicity distributions of relativistic shower particles emitted in
the forward (lab < 90) and backward (lab 90) hemispheres have been compared with
the data generated with the computer code FRITIOF based on the Lund Monte Carlo
Model [14, 15] for high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. The FRITIOF model is useful in
classifying particle emission into the forward hemisphere (FHS) and backward hemisphere
(BHS). The modied FRITIOF code used in present work is based on the version 1.6 (10
June 1986) of authors B. Nilsson-Almquist and Evert Stenlund, University of Lund, Lund,
Sweden [14, 15]. The modication was carried out by V. V. Uzhinskii, LIT, JINR, Dubna,
Russia, in 1995. A large sample of 5000 32 S-emulsion events has been generated using the
code, where the proportional abundance of dierent categories of target nuclei present in
the emulsion material has been taken into account. The dependence of NsF and NsB
on the projectile and target sizes are studied. The dependence of average forward shower
particle multiplicity, NsF and backward shower particle multiplicity, NsB on heavilyionizing particles, Nh can be described by a linear relation in which the data are found to
exhibit a positive correlation. Also the asymmetry factor (m = NsB NsF ) m-distribution
for dierent Ng intervals is studied, and the ratio NsF /NsB as a function of Ng is studied,
which indicates a linear behaviour. Finally the scaling of the multiplicity distributions of
the relativistic shower particles produced in both the forward and backward hemispheres
is observed to obey the KNO scaling law.

II. EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES

In this experiment two stacks of Ilford G5 nuclear emulsion plates were exposed
horizontally to a 32 S-beam at 200 AGeV from the Super Proton Synchrotron, SPS at
CERN have been utilized for data collection. The scanning of the plates was performed
with the help of a Leica DM2500M microscope with a 10X objective and 10X ocular lens
provided with semi-automatic scanning stages. The method of line scanning was used to
collect the inelastic 32 S-Em interactions. The interactions collected from line scanning were
scrutinized under an optical microscope (Semi-Automatic Computerized, Leica DM6000M)
with a total magnication of 10 100 using a 10X eyepiece and a 100X oil immersion
objective. The measuring system associated with it has a 1 m resolution along the X and
Y axes and a 0.5 m resolution along the Z-axis.
The tracks associated with the interactions are classied in accordance with their
ionization, range and velocity [16, 17]. The tracks having specic ionization g (= g/go )
< 1.4 and relative velocity > 0.7 are taken as shower tracks, where go is the Fowler and
Perkins parameter for plateau ionization of singly charged relativistic particles. The number
of such tracks in an event is represented by Ns . Shower tracks producing particles are
mostly pions, with a small admixture of charged K-mesons and fast protons. The secondary

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tracks having specic ionization in the interval 1.4 < g 10 are known as grey tracks. The
numbers of such tracks in a star are designated by Ng . This corresponds to protons with
velocity in the interval 0.3 0.7 and range 3.0 mm in the emulsion. The present
work in based on these shower tracks only. Grey tracks are associated with the recoiling
protons and have an energy range of (30400) MeV. The sum of the number of grey and
shower tracks in such an interaction is known as the compound particle multiplicity, and
their number in a collision is represented by Nc = Ng + Ns . Black tracks are mainly the
fragments emitted from an excited target. The secondary tracks having specic ionization
g > 10 are classied as black tracks, represented by Nb . This corresponds to protons
of relative velocity < 0.3 having a range in the emulsion of R < 3.0 mm. The particles
producing black tracks are mainly the fragments emitted from the excited target. This
ionization corresponds to protons with energy range < 30 MeV.
The black and grey tracks taken together are said to be heavily ionizing tracks. Thus
these tracks correspond to g 1.4 and 0.7. Their number in a star, Nh = (Nb + Ng )
is a characteristics of the target. There is a limitation with nuclear emulsion that the exact
identication of the target is not possible, since the medium of the emulsion is heterogeneous
and composed of H, C, N, O, Ag, and Br nuclei. The events produced due to the collisions
with dierent targets in nuclear emulsion are usually classied into three main categories
on the basis of the multiplicity of heavily ionizing tracks [18, 19].
In the present work we have categorized the events on the basis of Nh multiplicity
as: The events with Nh in the range 2 Nh 7 are classied as collision with a group of
light nuclei (CNO, AT = 14), and Nh 8 are classied as collision with a group of heavy
nuclei (AgBr, AT = 94). And the events with all Nh values are classied as collisions
with the emulsion. So, according to this selection procedure, we have chosen 330 events
of 32 S-Em, 200 events of 32 S-AgBr events, and 130 events of 32 S-CNO interactions at 200
AGeV.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

III-1. Multiplicity Distributions
The experimental multiplicity distributions of relativistic shower particles produced
in the forward (lab < 90) and backward (lab 90) hemispheres in the interaction of a 32 S
projectile with CNO, AgBr, and Em are shown in Fig. 1 (ac) and Fig. 2 (ac), respectively,
along with the corresponding FRITIOF data. It has been found that the multiplicity
distribution of relativistic shower particles for a given projectile in both the forward and
backward hemispheres slightly changes with the target size. It can be concluded that
increasing the target size leads to a slight shift of the distribution toward high multiplicity
events in both the forward and backward hemispheres. The experimental data in the
forward hemisphere has been found to be analogous to the FRITIOF data. However, it
deviates from the experimental data in the backward hemisphere, i.e., the peak appears at
lower values in the FRITIOF data as compared to the experimental data, which is because
of the low multiplicity of relativistic shower particles produced in the backward hemisphere

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in the FRITIOF generated data.

FIG. 1: Multiplicity distributions of relativistic shower particles produced in forward hemispheres

in the interaction of (a) 32 S-CNO, (b) 32 S-AgBr, and (c) 32 S-Em at 200 AGeV, along with the
FRITIOF data.

The values of NsF , DF and DF /NsF in the forward hemisphere for 32 S at 200
AGeV are given in Table I. Also the values of NsB , DB , and DB /NsB in the backward
hemisphere are also presented in the same table. Here DF and DB are values of dispersions
of relativistic shower particles in forward and backward hemispheres respectively. For the
sake of comparison, the values of NsF and NsB for 32 S at 4.5 AGeV [20] and 28 Si at 14.6
AGeV are also shown in the table. It has been found from the table that the values of NsF
and NsB increase with the projectile mass and energy, whereas the values of DF /NsF
and DB /NsB remain almost constant for the two projectiles 32 S at 200 AGeV and 28 Si
at 14.6 AGeV. Also, for the sake of comparison with the generated FRITIOF data, the
corresponding values for the FRITIOF data are given in the Table I.
III-2. Asymmetry Factor
The asymmetry factor (m = NsB NsF ), m distribution of relativistic shower particles
produced in 32 S-Em interactions at 200 AGeV for dierent Ng intervals, i.e., Ng = 0,
Ng = 1, Ng = 2, Ng = 3, Ng = 4, Ng = 5, 6, and Ng 7 are shown in Figure 3. It has been
found from the gure that the m distribution is almost similar for dierent Ng intervals,
whereas a sharp peak is observed for Ng 7.

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FIG. 2: Multiplicity distributions of relativistic shower particles produced in the backward hemispheres in the interactions of (a) 32 S-CNO, (b) 32 S-AgBr, and (c) 32 S-Em at 200 AGeV, along with
the FRITIOF data.
TABLE I: Values of NsF , NsB , and D/N in the forward and backward hemisphere at 200 AGeV.
Incident
Energy
(GeV)

Types of
Interaction

DF

NsB

DB

DB /NsB

14.58 0.48

0.46 0.03

18.99 0.16

8.86 0.21

0.46 0.01

3.13 0.08

2.53 0.11

0.77 0.03

69.54 0.40

21.46 0.58 0.30 0.008 18.93 0.24 8.08 0.35

0.42 0.01

Si-Em

32

14.6

28

200

32

S-Em

Backward hemisphere

DF /NsF

S-Em

4.5

FRITIOF

Forward hemisphere
NsF

(60.43 0.78) (56.15 0.82) (0.92 0.02) (5.36 0.10) (5.01 0.08) (0.93 0.03)

III-3. Variation of NsF and NsB with Projectile Mass

The values of the average multiplicity of shower particles produced in the forward
hemisphere NsF are strongly dependent on the projectile mass number Ap . Fig 4 (a)
shows the variation of NsF on the projectile mass number Ap , the values of the other
experimental data have been taken from the references [21, 22]. The solid line shows the
linear t to the data, and is given by the tting equation as:
NsF = (1.97 0.82) + (2.54 0.54)Ap .
Fig. 4 (b) shows the variation of NsB on the projectile mass number Ap , and it is
found to show a linear behaviour. The values of the other experimental data have been

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MULTIPLICITIES OF FORWARD - BACKWARD . . .

N g=0
N g=1
N g=2
N g=3
N g=4
N g=5,6
N g>= 7

0.24

0.20

0.16

dn/dm

VOL. 53

0.12

0.08

0.04

0.00
10

20

30

40

50

60

m = (N

70
B
s

80

90

100

110

- Ns )

FIG. 3: Asymmetry distribution for dierent Ng intervals in

32

S-Em interaction at 200 AGeV.

FIG. 4: Variation of NsF and NsB with projectile mass number, Ap .

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M. H. RASOOL, M. A. AHMAD, O. V. SINGH, AND S. AHMAD

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taken from the references [21, 22]. The solid line shows the linear t to the data represented
by an equation of the form:
NsB = (4.37 1.03) + (3.61 0.74)Ap .
III-4. Variation of NsF /NsB as a function of Ng
Fig. 5 shows the variation of the ratio of the forward and backward particles with the
Ng produced in the interactions of 32 S-Em at 200 AGeV. The experimental data has been
tted with a well-known Gaussian distribution, shown by the dotted line in the gure. The
Gaussian distribution is a statistical probability function which has a simple and appealing
physical interpretation. We have calculated the values of 2 /DOF (where DOF means
degrees of freedom) for the t, the width, and the peak of the distribution. The values are
found to be 0.54, 9.30, and 2.12, respectively. Since the 2 /DOF value is less than 1. This
indicates that the condence level of tting is high and the distribution has been tted
nicely.

FIG. 5: Variation of NsF /NsB with Ng .

III-5. Correlations
As we know, the only quantity by which a projectile may communicate with the
target fragmentation region is the energy transferred. In the photo emulsion technique, it is
customary to take the multiplicity of the heavily ionizing particles, Nh as in indirect measure

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of this quantity. It is therefore interesting to investigate the variations of NsF and NsB
with Nh . Fig. 6 shows the multiplicity correlations of relativistic shower particles emitted
in the forward and backward hemisphere as a function of the heavily ionizing particles, Nh ,
in the interactions of 32 S-Em at 200 AGeV. For comparison the results from the FRITIOF
model are also plotted in the same gure. These correlations can be tted by a positive
linear dependence shown by the tting equations below.
NsF = (60.12 2.85) + (1.36 0.25)Nh
NsF = (66.22 2.44) + (2.24 0.21)Nh
NsB (12.22 0.91) + (0.78 0.09)Nh
NsB (0.09 0.01) + (1.01 0.05)Nh

Experimental,
FRITIOF,
Experimental,
FRITIOF.

FIG. 6: Variations of (a) NsF with Nh and (b) NsB with Nh in 32 S-Em interactions at 200 AGeV
along with the FRITIOF data.

In Fig. 6 it has been shown that the experimental values for both NsF and NsB
increase linearly with Nh up to some limit, after that it remains constant, and that may
be because of the low statistics, whereas the corresponding FRITIOF data show a linear
increase over all Nh values. Analysis of these curves in Fig 6 and their tting may reveal
some important features. Especially, the average multiplicity of relativistic shower particles
emitted in the forward hemisphere depends strongly upon the number of heavily ionizing
particles, Nh , but the average multiplicity of backward shower particles depends weakly
upon the number of heavily ionizing particles Nh .

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The correlations between the multiplicity of relativistic shower particles emitted in the
backward and forward hemisphere are one of the most sensitive sources of information on
the mechanism of particle production in both the forward and backward hemispheres. Fig. 7
shows the relations between (a) NsF (NsB ) with NsB and (b) NsB (NsF ) with NsF for 32 SEm interactions at 200 AGeV, which evidently reveals a linear relation and is represented
below by the following relations, for the sake of comparison the corresponding FRITIOF
results are also plotted in the same gure with a linear relation given.
NsF = (39.38 2.49) + (1.57 0.12)NsB
NsF = (41.16 3.85) + (2.98 0.25)NsB
NsB = (5.59 1.22) + (0.17 0.02)NsF
NsB = (0.06 0.002) + (0.08 0.001)NsF

Experimental,
FRITIOF,
Experimental,
FRITIOF.

FIG. 7: Variation of (a) NsF with NsB and (b) NsB with NsF in 32 S-Em interactions at 200 AGeV
along with the FRITIOF data.

From the gures and the tting equations it may be noticed that a strong correlation
between NsF and NsB may be seen for both the experimental and FRITIOF data. However,
the FRITIOF data shows a greater increase than the experimental data, due to reasonable
statistics.

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III-6. KNO Scaling

Koba-Nielsen-Olesen (KNO) scaling [23] is a well established empirical law for multiparticle production in p - p collisions. Koba, Nielsen, and Olesen have predicted that the
multiplicity distributions of the produced particles in high-energy hadron-hadron collisions
should obey a simple scaling law known as KNO scaling when expressed in terms of the
scaling variable Z (= N/N ). If Pn (s) represents the probability for the production of n

charged particles in an inelastic hadron-hadron collision at a centre of mass energy s, then

the multiplicity distributions in high energy collision obey a scaling law:
(
)
n (s)
1
N
Pn (s) =
=

inel (s)
N
N
1
=
(Z),
(1)
N
where n (s) is the partial cross-section for the production of n charged particles, inel is the
total inelastic cross-section and N is the average number of charged particles produced.
The KNO scaling thus implies that the multiplicity distribution is universal and (Z) is
an energy independent function at suciently high energies when expressed in terms of the
scaling variable Z.
KNO scaling behaviour for the forward and backward multiplicity distributions is also
observed in nucleusnucleus collisions [24, 25]. Fig 8 shows the multiplicity distributions of
forward and backward particles emitted in 32 S emulsion interactions at 200 AGeV which
may be described by a KNO scaling law. These distributions may be represented by a
universal function of the form:
(Z) = AZ exp(BZ).

(2)

From Fig. 8 it can be seen that the experimental data of forward and backward
particles emitted in 32 S emulsion interactions at 200 AGeV lie on a universal curve within
the statistical errors, and seem to satisfy the scaling function. The best tting parameters
A and B used in Eq. (2) are found to be 3.68 0.02 and 1.62 0.01, respectively. The
values of the corresponding 2 /DOF are found to be 0.38, which indicates that the tting
is good for both the forward and backward multiplicity distributions.

IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

On the basis of the results presented, the following conclusions may be drawn:
1. The multiplicity distribution of relativistic shower particles for a given projectile
in both the forward and backward hemispheres slightly changes with the target size. So,
increasing the target size leads to a slight shift of the distribution toward high multiplicity
events in both the forward and backward hemispheres. The experimental data in the
forward hemisphere has been found to be analogous to the FRITIOF data. However, it
deviates from the experimental data in the backward hemisphere.

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FIG. 8: Forward and Backward Particle Multiplicity Distribution in terms of KNO Scaling in 32 S-Em
interactions at 200 AGeV/c.

2. The average multiplicity of shower particles produced in the forward and backward
hemisphere is strongly dependent on the projectile mass number Ap .
3. The multiplicity correlations of relativistic shower particles emitted in the forward
and backward hemisphere as a function of heavily ionizing particles, Nh , has been found to
show a linear relation.
4. The experimental data of the forward and backward particles emitted in 32 S
emulsion interactions at 200 AGeV lie on a universal curve within the statistical errors, and
seem to satisfy the scaling function.

Acknowledgement
We would like to express our thanks to Professor P. L. Jain of SUNY at Bualo,
USA for providing the exposed and developed emulsion plates for the present analysis. The
corresponding author of this paper Mir Hashim Rasool acknowledges Dr. Shakeel Ahmad
for his help in generating events using the FRITIOF model.

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