SHAPE DISTORTIONS OF MESON RESONANCES PRODUCED IN HADRON INTERACTIONSAT P(T)GREATER-THAN-OR-EQUAL-TO-2GEV C/

We study the shape of the invariant mass spectra of several resonances produced at p(T) greater-than-or-equal-to 2.0 GeV/c and observed thro ugh two-particle final states, namely the f2(1270), K(892), KBAR*(892 ), K(1430), and KBAR*(1430) mesons. The data sample comes from pi- Be interactions at P(lab) = 150 GeV/c and 300 GeV/c which have been coll ected using the OMEGA spectrometer at CERN. We find that although thes e meson resonances have their masses and widths consistent with the co rresponding world average values, their shapes are all subject to the same kind of distortion: their low-mass tail is enhanced while their h igh-mass tail is sharply cut. This observation indicates that meson re sonances produced in the fragmentation of quarks and gluons are distor ted by the same damping factor in a way which preserves their masses a nd lifetimes.