Coherent nuclear production of multi-body states

The author reviews the theory of coherent nuclear production of multi- body states having a broad mass spectrum. Two kinds of phenomena are of central interest: the production of broad enhancements such as A /sub 1/ and Q, and inclusive spectra in very high energy hadron- nucleus collisions. The major topics discussed are: (1) the very interesting and informative inclusive spectra that are expected to result from nuclear collisions if diffraction dissociation plays a major role in the underlying hadron-hadron collisions; (2) a theory of coherent production that allows for strong coupling between the elastic and coherent production channels, the longitudinal momentum transfer, and changes of mass resulting from successive diffractive collisions within the nucleus; (3) Van Hove's model for explaining the astonishingly small total cross-sections that have been extracted from multi-boson production experiments, and the questions raised thereby concerning the structure of the amplitudes that describe the scattering of the produced states by a system of nucleons. (15 refs).