Description of ϕ -meson production in hadronic and nuclear collisions at very high energies

Abstract

We expose the current experimental and theoretical situation of the interesting case of the production of ϕ mesons in up to very high energy collisions of hadrons on both nucleon and nuclear targets, and we present a quantitatively good theoretical description of the corresponding experimental data, based on the formalism of the well established Quark–Gluon String Model, that has proved to be valid for a wide energy range. All the available experimental data for ϕ -meson production in hadron–nucleon collisions on the spectra of secondary ϕ , and on the ratios of ϕ/π− and ϕ/K− production cross-sections, as well the corresponding ones for ϕ -meson production on nuclear targets, are considered. In particular, it is seen that the production of ϕ -mesons on nuclear targets presents unusually small shadow corrections for the inclusive density in the central rapidity region.