Study of charged multiplicity distributions in high energy particle collisions

Data on hadron-proton collisions ranging from 1 to 300 GeV/c in incident momentum show evidence for an energy-dependent approach to a single semi-inclusive scaling curve for the charged multiplicity cross sections as predicted by Koba, Nielsen and Olesen. The onset of this scaling behavior is shown to depend on the initial state hadrons. The relation between the onset of this apparent scaling and the approach to a constant value of 〈n〉/D is suggestive of a two-component process.