19 research outputs found
Pion-Muon Asymmetry Revisited
Long ago an unexpected and unexplainable phenomena was observed. The
distribution of muons from positive pion decay at rest was anisotropic with an
excess in the backward direction relative to the direction of the proton beam
from which the pions were created. Although this effect was observed by several
different groups with pions produced by different means, the result was not
accepted by the physics community, because it is in direct conflict with a
large set of other experiments indicating that the pion is a pseudoscalar
particle. It is possible to satisfy both sets of experiments if helicity-zero
vector particles exist and the pion is such a particle. Helicity-zero vector
particles have direction but no net spin. For the neutral pion to be a vector
particle requires an additional modification to conventional theory as
discussed herein. An experiment is proposed which can prove that the asymmetry
in the distribution of muons from pion decay is a genuine physical effect
because the asymmetry can be modified in a controllable manner. A positive
result will also prove that the pion is NOT a pseudoscalar particle.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Antiproton Production in Collisions at AGS Energies
Inclusive and semi-inclusive measurements are presented for antiproton
() production in proton-nucleus collisions at the AGS. The inclusive
yields per event increase strongly with increasing beam energy and decrease
slightly with increasing target mass. The yield in 17.5 GeV/c p+Au
collisions decreases with grey track multiplicity, , for ,
consistent with annihilation within the target nucleus. The relationship
between and the number of scatterings of the proton in the nucleus is
used to estimate the annihilation cross section in the nuclear
medium. The resulting cross section is at least a factor of five smaller than
the free annihilation cross section when assuming a small or
negligible formation time. Only with a long formation time can the data be
described with the free annihilation cross section.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure