On mean number of collisions in high energy hadron-nucleus interaction

Conclusions

Properties of the mean number of collisionsv _pA have been discussed in some detail. It was shown that the standard parametrization (2) should be taken with a proper care if a wide range of nuclei is considered. Moreover, we have seen that any serious approach to the very high energy collisions cannot avoid an inclusion of an energy dependence of the parametersv ₁ v ₂. It reflects primarily the energy dependence of the proton-nucleon inelastic (and total) cross sections. On the other hand, it appears that these parameters are rather insensitive to the details of the proton-nucleon interaction and of the nuclear wave function.

We have not intended to resolve the problem of apparent discrepancy between the parametrizations forv _pA of Denisov and Caroll based on the experimental data at the same energy. We have only illustrated that two constantsv ₁ andv ₂ do not tell the whole story.