Low-energy Antiproton Neon Interaction

By means of a streamer chamber exposed to the LEAR antiproton beams, the total reaction cross sections, the charged-prong multiplicity distributions and lower limits for the production of negative pions and K(0)(s) in the pbar Ne interaction were measured at 19.6, 48.7 and 179.6 MeV. Annihilation was found to be dominant over all other non-elastic pbar Ne processes. An analysis of Ne and other nuclei data in the frame of the Glauber theory allowed us to determine the ratio between the pbar-n and the pbar-p cross sections. An analysis in the light of JNC model predictions allowed us to show up events which can be interpreted as annihilations having occurred deeply inside the nuclei.