High energy muon-nucleon inelastic scattering at lowq ²

Abstract

The inelastic interactions of 150 GeV positive muons produced at Fermi Laboratory have been studied in nuclear emulsion. Secondary particles produced in these interactions have been identified, the energy spectra and angular distributions for pions and protons are given. The inclusive pionproduction reaction is studied and the relative shape ofp ² _t distribution is discussed. The average charged multiplicity relations are determined as a function of different parameters and are compared with the multiplicities produced in pure hadronic interactions. The integral cross sections have been measured and are compared with the first and second powers of 1/(1+q ²/m ² _p ) forσ _exp(q ²,v), the quantity commonly called the “virtualphoton-nucleon total cross section”. The values of the structure function νW ₂ are calculated for 0.02≤q ²≤0.5. The present data are compared with other muon data at the same energy.