On the hadron formation time in pion-nucleus interaction

Differences in the observable characteristics of pion-nucleus interactions at high energy are investigated for two definitions of the hadron formation time. The Monte Carlo simulation of hadron-nucleus interactions and quark-gluon string model for hadron-hadron collisions are used. It is shown that the momentum spectrum of the protons in the target fragmentation region is most sensitive to the definition of the formation time. The inclusive meson and meson resonance spectra are similar in the both versions. 20 refs.; 4 figs.; 1 tab