Scaling Properties of High-Mass Symmetric Hadron- and Pion-Pair Production in Proton-Beryllium Collisions

We present measurements of the production symmetric high-mass hadron and pion pairs by protons of 200, 300, and 400 GeV, incident on a beryllium target. The two-particle invariant cross section for pion production can be described by the function $\frac{E_1{E}_2{d}^6\sigma }{d{p_1}^{3}d{p_2}^3}=(1.7\mathrm{}\times {10}^{-28\mathrm{}}){p_t}^{-8.4\mathrm{}}{(1-x_t)}^{14}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^2$/Ge${\mathrm{V}}^4$ (where $p_t$ is the mean $p_t$ of the two hadrons). Functions of the same form have been used in describing single-pion inclusive production. Equality of the exponents of $p_t$ in the two processes is observed, confirming the role of smearing contributions to single-hadron cross sections.