Evidence for observation of color transparency in proton nucleus collisions

The authors introduce a data procedure for color transparency experiments which is considerably less model dependent than the transparency ratio method. The new method is based on fitting the shape of the A dependence of the nuclear cross section at fixed momentum transfer to determine the effective attenuation cross section for hadrons propagating through the nucleus. The hard scattering cross section is then determined directly from the data. The authors apply this procedure to the Brookhaven experiment of Carroll et al and find that it clearly shows color transparency: the effective attenuation cross section in events with momentum transfer Q2 is approximately 40 mb (2.2 GeV2/Q2). The fit to the data also supports the idea that the hard scattering inside the nuclear medium is closer to perturbative QCD predictions than is the scattering of isolated protons in free space. The authors discuss the application of their approach to electroproduction experiments