Universality of Charged Multiplicity Distributions

It is shown that the charged multiplicity distributions of the diffractive and nondiffractive components of hadronic interactions, as well as those of hadronic states produced in a variety of other reactions, follow a universal function which depends only on the mass available for pionization. This function is Gaussian, peaks at $n_0\cong 2M^{\frac{1}{2}}$, where $M$ is the available mass in gigaelectronvolts, and has a width $D={(〈n^2〉-{n_0}^2)}^{\frac{1}{2}}$ such that $\frac{n_0}{D}\cong 2$.