Absorptive effects in the diffractive dissociation of nucleons

Absorptive effects are found to be important in diffraction dissociation. For pp→(nπ⁺)p and np→(pπ^?)p, at small excitation mass, a significant dip structure is created in the production momentum transfer distribution $\text{d}\text{σ}\text{d}\text{t}\text{d}\text{M}\text{near}\text{t = ?0.3 (}\text{GeV}\text{c}\text{)}{}^2$, in agreement with data from Fermilab and the CERN-ISR. The mass-slope correlation, seen in the data, is also reproduced. Most other distributions are affected much less by absorption.