Isolating the exchanges in multiple production

Abstract

We employ rapidity-gap distributions to identify and study the exchanges between hadron clusters produced in collisions at Fermilab energies. The observation of charge exchange disproves the neutral cluster model. At these energies, the data are consistent with the independent emission of clusters of limited charge or with a true limited-charge-exchange picture. For exchange models, two important parameters are identified: the ratio between $|\ensuremath{\Delta}Q|=1$ and $\ensuremath{\Delta}Q=0$ exchange, and the ratio between the density in rapidity of charged clusters and that of neutral clusters. In principle, both of these quantities are measurable, but with existing data only the first can be determined. We use a unitarity calculation to estimate the second. Given an exchange model which fits rapidity-gap distributions, we obtain a solution to the counting problem in the overlap-function calculation of the energy dependence of two-body charge exchange, and estimate the suppression of charge exchange with respect to elastic scattering.