Influence of transverse momentum on the spectra of fast mesons in quark jets

A study is made of the influence of the transverse motion of the interacting quarks (gluons) inside hadrons on the character of the spectra of fast mesons (x..-->..1) in the quark fragmentation region in hadronic collisions at small p/sup 2//sub perpendicular/. It is shown that the deviation from the predictions of the quark counting rules can be explained by taking into account fluctuations in the transverse momentum .