The nuclear response in high-energy hadron-nucleus interactions

In an experiment at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) studying hadron-nucleus interactions, slow particles which are mainly knockout protons were measured with an electronic detector. Their dependence on the target mass, incoming energy, and projectile is shown. We discuss the use of the number of protons as a measure for the number of interactions of the projectile and conclude that the emitted protons measure the impact parameter of the reaction.