Production of High-Transverse-Momentum Deuterons and Tritons at an Angle of 40 ^∘ in Proton–Nucleus Interactions at a Beam Energy of 50 GeV

Data on the production of positively charged particles emitted at an angle of 40 ^∘ (in the laboratory frame) with transverse momenta of up to 2.7 GeV /c in the interaction of 50-GeV /c protons with carbon, aluminum, copper, and tungsten nuclear targets are presented. Particular attention is given to studying the production of light nuclear fragments, such as deuterons ( d ) and tritons ( t ). An analysis of data on d and t particles gives grounds to state that these fragments arise via a local mechanism of their direct knockout from nuclei. The results were obtained in the SPIN experiment at the Institute for High Energy Physics (IHEP, Protvino).