Charged-particle multiplicity distributions in. nu. n and. nu. p charged-current interactions

Charged-hadron multiplicity distributions in ..nu..n and ..nu..p interactions are measured in an exposure of the Fermilab deuterium-filled 15-foot bubble chamber to a wide-band neutrino beam. Multiplicity moments are studied as functions of the invariant mass of the hadronic system W in the range 1 is observed with an approximate slope of 0.35. This value is similar to that found in e/sup +/e/sup -/ and p-barp annihilations and is much less than the asymptotic prediction of QCD. A close similarity between D/sub -/ vs in ..nu..n and ..nu..p interactions is seen. Negative correlations between the multiplicity distributions in the forward and backward hadronic center-of-mass hemispheres are found and discussed.