Inclusive-and Exclusive-Cross-Section Functionals: Conservation Constraints and Multiplicity Distributions

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Abstract
A generating functional is constructed that relates inclusive and exclusive multiparticle cross sections. In a special case it reduces to the generating function of the multiplicity distribution. The generating functional is used to derive the complete set of constraints imposed by energy-momentum and charge conservation. The nature of these constraints in the high-energy limit is discussed. We show that, if there is no correlation between a pair of pions of the same charge, then the width of the multiplicity distribution of all charged pions should be about twice that of a Poisson distribution, a result in good agreement with present experiment. We also conjecture that, in the high-energy limit, the leading terms of all the moments of the multiplicity distribution of a particular produced particle become independent of the production mechanism.