OBSERVATION OF DIRECT SOFT PHOTON PRODUCTION IN PI-P INTERACTIONS AT 280 GEV C/

The OMEGA spectrometer, equipped with a hydrogen target and two electr omagnetic calorimeters, was used to investigate the production of soft gammas in hadronic collisions. The E(gamma) and P(T) distributions of the measured gamma's are compared with the corresponding distribution s of gamma's arising from hadronic decays and of gamma's expected from QED inner bremsstrahlung. An excess of gammas by a factor of 7.9 +/- 1.4 over the QED prediction is measured in the low energy (0.2 < E(gam ma) < 1.0 GeV) and low P(T) (< 10 MeV/c) kinematic region, and confirm s the original observation of a similar effect in a bubble chamber exp eriment.