Evidence of fractal structures in hadrons

Abstract

This study focuses on the presence of (multi)fractal structures in confined hadronic matter through the momentum distributions of mesons produced in proton-proton collisions between 23 GeV and 63 GeV. The analysis demonstrates that the $q$-exponential behaviour of the particle momentum distributions is consistent with fractal characteristics, exhibiting fractal structures in confined hadronic matter with features similar to those observed in the deconfined quark-gluon plasma (QGP) regime. Furthermore, the systematic analysis of meson production in hadronic collisions at energies below 1 TeV suggests that specific fractal parameters are universal, independently of confinement or deconfinement, while others may be influenced by the quark content of the produced meson. These results pave the way for further research exploring the implications of fractal structures on various physical distributions and offer insights into the nature of the phase transition between confined and deconfined regimes.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, supplementary materia