Analysis of the rapidity gap probability at CERN collider energies

The rapidity gap probability, i.e., the probability of detecting no particles in a given rapidity interval is investigated in proton-antiproton collisions at CERN collider energies. A scaling behaviour is found in the central rapidity domain, similar to the scaling of the void probability in the Perseus-Pisces supercluster region of galaxies. This observation confirms that the recently proposed linked-pair approximation for the N-particle cumulant correlation functions holds valid to high order with linking coefficients slightly smaller than the negative binomial values. In the outer region of rapidity deviations are found from the scaling law which possibly is caused by the violation of translation invariance of the correlation functions. The correspondence to the clan production picture of hadronization is outlined: It is shown that the clan-model parameters can be obtained directly from the 'hole probability'. (orig.)