Comparison of planar features of K−p interactions with e+e− annihilations and deep inelastic μp scattering

Abstract The planar features of hadronic final states in K − p interactions at 4.5, 5.6 and 14.3 GeV c.m. energy are compared with data from e + e − annihilation and deep inelastic μp scattering. A strong energy variation of the distributions (1/ σ )d σ /d p t 2 , 〈 p t 2 〉 in and Σp 2 t in is observed over this energy range. Striking agreement is found between the K − p data at 14.3 c.m. energy and the leptonic data at similar hadronic c.m. energies. The behaviour of these distributions from K − p data is not well described by the simple quark fragmentation model, but shows deviations similar to those attributed to hard gluon effects in leptonic interactions.