MULTIPLICITY OF CHARGED-PARTICLES IN INELASTIC INTERACTIONS OF OXYGENNUCLEI WITH HYDROGEN AT 3.1 A GEV C/

Experimental data on multiplicities of secondary charged particles in interactions of oxygen nuclei in a hydrogen bubble chamber at the inci dent momentum of 3.1 A GeV/c are presented and discussed. Multiplicity correlations are studied in details and it is shown that the characte r of these correlations is strongly influenced by the electric charge and baryon number conservation. Topologies and probabilities of differ ent channels of fragmentation are determined for projectile oxygen nuc lei. It is established that channels with production of helium nuclei play an important role in the processes of multifragment break-up of o xygen nuclei. Comparison of the experimental data with predictions of the cascade-fragmentation-evaporation model has shown that the model p rovide the qualitative description of the considerable amount of exper imental observations.