Rapidity gaps and scaling in high energy interactions

The rapidity gap probability is investigated in varying symmetric bin sizes in proton-nucleus interactions at 800 GeV. It shows a scaling behavior and confirms the linked pair approximation for the n-particle cumulant correlation functions to high order. A comparison of the scaled rapidity gap probability is made with the negative binomial distribution. We also interpret the rapidity gap probability in the clan production model of hadronization and reanalyze the clan parameters in its light. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society