Abstract:

The pioneering experimental studies of proton scattering on nuclei, started in the late 1950s at DLNP (JINR), allowed D. I. Blokhintsev to assume the presence of a lower mass nucleus in a compressed state in nuclei, that means the presence of a cold strongly compressed component in ordinary nuclear matter. The search for and the study of two- and three-nucleon systems in nuclei continued at DLNP and ITEP (Moscow) and beyond. The investigations were carried out in the kinematic region, outside kinematics of the nucleon-nucleon interaction. Later, the processes in this kinematic region were called “cumulative processes”.

The report presents the results of studies of cumulative processes outside the nuclear fragmentation region and with production of particles with the transverse momentum greater than 1 GeV/c. These studies were carried out with proton and carbon nuclei beams at the accelerator complex of IHEP (Protvino). The data were gained using the SPIN set up, a single-arm magnetic spectrometer. The obtained data showed that the processes of direct knockout of deuteron and tritium nuclei with momenta up to 6.5 GeV/c are observed. This confirms the presence of deuterons and tritium in nuclear matter in a highly compressed state, in other words, the existence of the cold superdense baryonic component.