摘要:

At his meeting the Centauro events (s)1emerged as probably the hardest feature of cosmic ray data to understand with conventional physics, should future experiments indeed substantiate their existence. Here we propose a simple scenario which seems compatible with the qualitative features of the event (s), while it maintains contact with present physics ideas.We are motivated to present this despite the ugly features it involves from the viewpoint of most QCD theorists partly by the paucity of other explanations, and more by the fact that other cosmic ray and laboratory data are on the verge of disproving it, so that a modest improvement in technique could rule out this explanation. First, I sketch the scenario and show how it seems in qualitative agreement with Centauro event (s). Next I discuss the implications for other experiments and compare with present limits. At the end I discuss the probably very complicated theoretical future that would emerge if this explanation turned out to be true.The scenario is that in collisions of nucleons at high energy ≳1 TeV, a small region of the colliding material gets heated to a high temperature, presumably kT≫1 GeV. We suppose, in accord with the spirit of many recent treatments of QCD and confinement,2that another phase dominates the dynamics at these temperatures and is such that quarks are able to escape (we discuss this further below). This hotspot could then materialize in the final state as a collection of Quarks coming from a massive fireball decaying. This would look quite like the Centauro event  (s) and would solve the missing &pgr;0problems. The remaining feature of Centauro events is the very high multiplicity. Here we remark that as the quarks come from a different phase we might indeed expect a difference in multiplicity. At the end we consider a crude potential model and argue tht a high multiplicity is to be expected.Since we are anticipating a large number of quarks being produced at high energies, we must check that this is not in palpable conflict with known searches. We follow the useful review of Jones3in checking this. From the flux &fgr;p(E≳1015 eV) &angupr;10−10  (sr cm2sec)−1of nucleons and the indications, from ref. 1, that 5% of events are of Centauro type, and of a (quark) multiplicity of around 100 we find 5.10110(sr cm2sec)−1as the quark flux &fgr;qarising from Centauro events.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31641

出版商:AIP    

年代:1979

数据来源: AIP

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31642

出版商:AIP    

年代:1979

数据来源: AIP