Quark models for hadronic reactions. Nucleon-nucleon scattering

A model for the development of scattered quarks into final-state hadrons is extended for application to hadronic reactions, focusing on nucleon-nucleon scattering in particular. Numerical calculations show that the model reproduces the main features of experimental data on secondary-hadron production in low-transverse-momentum nucleon-nucleon scattering at c.m. energies above about 3 GeV, including the variation of $\frac{{\sigma }_{\mathrm{el}}}{{\sigma }_{\mathrm{tot}}}$ with energy, the average charged-hadron multiplicity, the moments of the charged-hadron multiplicity distribution, and the longitudinal-momentum distribution of final-state hadrons. In anticipation of the future availability of higher-energy nucleon colliding-beam machines, charged-hadron multiplicities are estimated for c.m. energies up to 2000 GeV.