Some Properties of a Transient New Coherent Condition of Matter Formed in High–Energy Hadronic Collisions

We investigate the dynamical possibility for the formation of a transient new coherent condition of matter in high–energy hadronic collisions. The coherent bosonic amplitude is characterized by a non–zero momentum and is sustained by P–wave interactions of quasi–pions in a dense fermionic medium. We make quantitative estimates of several essential properties: the condensate momentum and the fermionic density, the size of the coherent amplitude and the negative energy density contributed by the condensate, a characteristic proper time for the system to exist prior to breakdown into a few pions, and a characteristic extension of the system over the plane perpendicular to the collision axis. These quantities then allow us to make definite estimates of new signals: a few pions with anomalously small transverse momenta ≤ 50 MeV/c; and a possible anomalous bremsstrahlung of very soft photons with characteristic transverse momenta as low as about 4 MeV/c. 1 There exist certain definite anomalous effects in current high–energy experiments involving collisions of hadrons [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. These unusual effects can be connected through the transient existence of a new coherent condition of matter [1]. Such a hypothetical, relatively long–lived system, becoming spatially extended over the (impact–parameter) plane perpendicular to the collision axis can be formed in some of the real, intermediate inelastic states which contribute to the (imaginary) amplitude for the diffractive elastic scattering of hadrons. The coherent system can support an oscillatory behavior of matter with a fairly definite non–zero momentum [6] in the transverse plane. The relevant Fourier–Bessel transform of this spatial oscillatory behavior into the space of transverse momentum–transfer √ −t ≃ √ s 2 θ (for small c.m. scattering angle θ), results in a localized structure in the differential cross section dσel dt around a fairly definite value of √ −t. Such a localized structure exists [1] in the data from collider and fixed–target experiments up to the present highest center–of–mass energy √ s = 1800 GeV. There must also be direct signals from the transient coherent system in inelastic processes. One signal that is a general consequence of the extension of the system to several fermis over the transverse plane is the breakdown into a few pions with anomalously small transverse momenta ≤ 50 MeV/c. Observation of this unusual effect against the background of many pions produced with the usual average transverse momentum of (250 − 350) MeV/c requires measurements on individual events, in particular events with low multiplicity. In fact, this unusual phenomenon of small–pT , few–particle emission is the main new empirical feature in a recent, detailed study of several hundred cosmic–ray showers “in the forwardmost small–angular region” [7]. If charged currents exist within the coherent system during its evolution, then it has been shown that soft photons will be emitted [8]. The occurrence of an anomalously high emission of soft photons has been and is today, an enigmatic feature of several different experiments at CERN [2, 3, 4, 5, 9].