Soft hadron production in pp interactions up to ISR energies

Soft hadron production is described as a two-step process, where the interaction of the partonic constituents of the colliding hadrons leads to the production of intermediate subsystems (fireballs), which decay subsequently into hadrons. The weights of the various final states are derived from the corresponding phase-space factors modified by empirical transition elements. The results compare well with data at energies between particle production thresholds and ISR energies. Special emphasis is put on correlation data, which offer the opportunity to shed some light on the question whether particle production proceeds via fireballs or strings. Received: 20 July 2000 / Revised version: 26 October 2000 / Published online: 21 December 2000