The multiplicity distribution in proton-proton collisions at high energy

Two models are described and tested of multiplicity distributions in hadron-hadron collisions at high energy. The former is based on the Markovian model and the latter is Kolmogorov's log-normal distribution. Both distributions are compared with the proton-proton data available at present in the range of laboratory momenta 12.88 GeV/c to 303 GeV/c. It is shown that the log-normal distribution is inconsistent with the data, while the Markovian model can fit the data on the production of pairs of charged particles fairly well. (author)