Hadron production cross-sections at relativistic energies with large phase-space coverage - Paper 39

Accurate measurements of soft particle production in hadronic interactions at relativistic energies have long been an experimental challenge, in particular when the measurement is over a large final state phase-space, and when multiple combinations of beam and targets are investigated. Lacking quantitative predictions from the fundamental theory of quantum chromo-dynamics (QCD) in the non-perturbative sector, the study of soft hadronic physics needs to rely on precise, self-consistent, high-statistics data sets with full phase-space coverage and low systematic errors. Phenomenological models of particle production in hadronic collisions need such data to constrain their parameters, and possibly to discriminate among the underlying features of these models. In this article the 'soft' physics refers to production of particles with transverse momenta, pT, below 2 GeV/c, which comprises over 99% of the total production cross-section. It is also known as 'bulk' particle production, or the 'underlying event' in reference to the background of hard processes, particles produced with much larger transverse momentum which are usually described in the framework of perturbative QCD. Improving these models is of interest of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (RPSD) community, as well as the availability of accurate data with large phase space coverage. The NA49 collaboration has published new, high precision, and comprehensive sets of inclusive meson and baryon cross sections in p+p and p+C interactions over most of the available phase space with comparisons to past experimental results. The corresponding physics analysis presents a model-independent approach to soft hadronic physics and constitutes a novel approach to exploration of this non-perturbative sector of QCD. The precision study of p+A interactions may allow for differentiation between assumptions underlying different microscopic models of bulk particle production in relativistic hadronic collisions, and thus aid model development. The final data on inclusive particle production including the invariant double differential cross sections, the transversely integrated yields, and the developed interpolations, along with the published papers and other documents relevant to this work are conveniently available. (author)