Measurement of the production cross-sections of π± in p–C and π±–C interactions at 12 GeV/c

The results of the measurements of the double-differential production cross-sections of pions, dσ/dpdΩ, in p C and π C interactions using the forward spectrometer of the HARP experiment are presented. The incident particles are 12 GeV/c protons and charged pions directed onto a carbon target with a thickness of 5% of a nuclear interaction length. For p C interactions the analysis is performed using 100,035 reconstructed secondary tracks, while the corresponding numbers of tracks for π C and π C analyses are 106,534 and 10,122, respectively. Cross-section results are presented in the kinematic range 0.5GeV/c⩽pπ