Loss of protons in thin absorbers

Proton losses due to nuclear inelastic interactions have been measured in Al and Cu absorbers of thicknesses less than half the proton range, for incident proton energies of 250 and 560 MeV. It is shown that the data can be used to obtain absorption corrections in proton counter telescopes for other energies in this energy interval. The absorption correction would be found from the loss calculated from the proton reaction cross-sections by multiplying by an experimentally determined ratio which is given by the present measurement. (5 refs).