Flat Proton Spectrum and Its Implications

Abstract

The longitudinal momentum distribution of the final detected proton in $\mathrm{pp}$ inclusive reactions is flat for energies ranging from 20 to 1500 GeV. We show how this can be understood in the diffractive model, and how this information provides a way for calculating the average multiplicity and the pion longitudinal momentum distributions in $\mathrm{pp}$ inclusive reactions. No arbitrary parameter is used. The agreement with experiment is remarkably good.