Inclusive Study of 200 Gev/c Pion-Neon Interactions.

200 GeV/c pi-neon interactions are studied in the Fermilab 30 inch bubble chamber which was filled with a neon-hydrogen mixture (31 molar % neon). Scan results and measurements of a representative event sample yield proton, gamma and pion multiplicities and single particle spectra. R was measured to be 1.21 (+OR-) 0.05 for both pi('+) and pi('0). Nearly identical to lower energy measurements, R is strongly dependent on the number of observed protons in the event. KNO scaling is observed for the corrected multiplicity distributions. Scaling, however, appears violated if events with a fixed number of protons are considered. Study of the pion single particle spectra show the excess particle production of the neon target over that of hydrogen is largest in the target fragmentation region and nearly constant (1.28 (+OR-) 0.02) in the central production region. The dependence of the pion rapidity distribution on the number of protons is consistent with collisions on either one or two nucleons. The s('-1/2) dependence of the p(,(PARLL)) spectra is very similar to that seen in hydrogen, with limiting fragmentation reached only for beam energies much greater than 200 GeV/c. The proton momentum distribution is energy independent with the protons carrying proportionally less of the bombarding energy as s increases.