Diffraction Dissociation of Beam Particles

Abstract

A phenomenon is predicted in which a high-energy particle beam undergoing diffraction scattering from a nucleus will acquire components corresponding to various products of the virtual dissociations of the incident particle, as $p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\Lambda}+{K}^{+}$ or ${\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\overline{p}+n$. These diffraction-produced systems would have a characteristic extremely narrow distribution in transverse momentum, and would have all the same quantum numbers as the initial particle; i.e., the same spin, isotopic spin, and parity. The process is related to that discussed in the preceding paper, and has the same effective energy threshold.