Study of hyperfragments II. Short-range hyperfragments and short tracks

From a sample of 553 hyperfragments produced in 23 GeV/c proton interactions with emulsion nuclei, the hyperfragments of range ≤ 10µm, have been studied. In order to understand the nature of these short-range hyperfragments, the emission of short tracks (R≤ 10µm) and 8Li fragments from interactions of 23 GeV/c protons and 3.5 GeV/c pions with emulsion nuclei have also been studied; for this 5968Li fragments have been used. From these studies it has been concluded that i) the effective Coulomb barrier for the emission of 8Li fragments is smaller by a factor of ~3 than the classical one; ii) a broad mass spectrum of nuclei is required to understand the range distribution of short tracks; this conclusion also follows from the Nh distribution of the parent stars; and iii) among the hyperfragments of range (0 / 5) µm and (5/10) µm, at least 34% and 74% respectively have mass numbers ≲50