A statistical method to estimate low-energy hadronic cross sections

TL;DR

This paper introduces a statistical bootstrap model to estimate low-energy hadronic cross sections, incorporating fireball formation and decay, and successfully reproduces various reaction ratios and annihilation processes.

Contribution

It presents a novel statistical approach combining phase space and quark factors to predict hadronic cross sections and decay probabilities at low energies.

Findings

Reproduces cross section ratios for hadronic reactions.

Describes proton-antiproton annihilation at rest.

Fits parameters for strange and charmed meson production.

Abstract

In this article we propose a model based on the Statistical Bootstrap approach to estimate the cross sections of different hadronic reactions up to a few GeV in c.m.s energy. The method is based on the idea, when two particles collide a so called fireball is formed, which after a short time period decays statistically into a specific final state. To calculate the probabilities we use a phase space description extended with quark combinatorial factors and the possibility of more than one fireball formation. In a few simple cases the probability of a specific final state can be calculated analytically, where we show that the model is able to reproduce the ratios of the considered cross sections. We also show that the model is able to describe proton\,-\,antiproton annihilation at rest. In the latter case we used a numerical method to calculate the more complicated final state probabilities. Additionally, we examined the formation of strange and charmed mesons as well, where we used existing data to fit the relevant model parameters.