Multiplicity of secondary particles and fragmentation in nuclear interactions of 22Ne and 32S nuclei with emulsion at (4.1-4.5) A GeV/c

The interactions of 4.1 A GeV/c 22Ne and 4.5 A GeV/c 32S nuclei with emulsion were studied and the dependence of the average multiplicities of the emitted secondary charged particles and the interacting projectile nucleons on the impact parameters were investigated. The behavior of the Koba-Neilsen-Olesen (KNO) scaling formula of the multiplicity distributions produced due to the interactions of 22Ne and 32S at the energies mentioned above is satisfied by all target protons. The multiplicity distributions of the emitted 4He fragments and the fragmentation cross-section relative to the inelastic cross-section were investigated and give a 4He-fragments yield which is always ten times greater than the yield of any other fragments. The dependence of the normalized mean multiplicity and the reduced multiplicity on the mass of the projectile and target nucleus can be described by a power law. (author)