Reminiscences of Wit Busza and 41 Years of p+A Physics

Abstract

One of the more memorable (and easiest) proposal to deal with when I served on Bob Wilson's Program Advisory Committee at NAL (Now Fermilab) from 1972-75 was Proposal-178, "A study of the average multiplicity and multiplicity distributions in hadron-nucleus collisions at high energies", with only 4 authors, Wit Busza, Jerry Friedman, Henry Kendall and Larry Rosenson, as presented at the PAC meeting by Wit. What I remember was that he discussed only ONE 5 inch photomultiplier with a Cherenkov radiator in the beam to make this measurement of production of charged particles with angles up to 30 degrees in various nuclei, 40 hours requested. This turned out to be a "seminal" experiment leading to the Wounded Nucleon and other participant models. Subsequent p(d)+A experiments from the AGS to RHIC, as well as alpha-alpha measurements at the CERN-ISR, will be discussed together with the various `participants' that they revealed.