Deuteron formation in nuclear collisions

Deuteron production cross sections are calculated from an intranuclear cascade model for Ne + U and Ar + Ca at 400 MeV/A. In effect, there are no adjustable parameters in this calculation. The parameters of the cascade code are fixed by sum charged inclusive data. Furthermore, the high momentum deuteron inclusive distribution is found to be insensitive to the details of the deuteron wave function. This latter observation leads to a justification of a generalized coalescence formula involving both momentum and spatial coordinates. Satisfactory agreement is found between our calculations and both the untriggered and high multiplicity triggered inclusive spectra of deuterons with energies ?50 MeV/A.