Study of pion kaon and proton in proton-carbon interactions at 158 GeV/c using hadron production models

In this work, we investigate the production of π±, K± mesons, protons and antiprotons, by exploiting the theoretical hadron production models: EPOS 1.99, EPOS-LHC and QGSJETII-04, using proton-carbon collisions at a potential laboratory momentum of 158 GeV/c. Laboratory momentum-dependent double differential yields of these particles are studied where it is produced at a polar angle ranging from 0 mrad to 420 mrad for π± mesons while for K± mesons, protons and antiprotons, the angle ranges from 0 mrad to 360 mrad. The QGSJET predicts high yields of the π± mesons for a polar angle ranging from 0 mrad to 20 mrad at the peak of the distribution while beyond 20 mrad, the high yield is demonstrated by EPOS-LHC. In the case of K± mesons and antiprotons, the QGSJETII-04 gives higher yield at the peak of the distribution in all the cases, whereas the EPOS-1.99 and EPOS-LHC produce similar results. In most of the cases at high momentum of the hadrons, the trios are in very good agreement with each other.