Correlations between neutrons with small relative momenta produced in p-Pb interactions at 7,5 GeV/c

Correlations between neutrons with small relative momenta have been studied in p-Pb interactions at 7.5 GeV/c. The 10-100 MeV neutrons emerging at the angles of 75-90 degrees with respect to the beam direction were recorded. Two-neutron final-state interaction effect carrying information about space-time characteristics of a neutron source has been observed. Magnitude of the effect has been found to depend on the mean neutron momentum in the pair. As the spatial extent of the neutron source is assumed to be limited by the size of the target nucleus, the source lifetime has been found to decrease with the increasing mean neutron momentum. This fact is explained by considerable contribution of the evaporation process to the emission of slow secondaries