CLASSICAL HADRODYNAMICS - APPLICATION TO SOFT NUCLEON-NUCLEON COLLISIONS

We present results for soft nucleon-nucleon collisions at p(lab) = 14. 6, 30, 60, 100 and 200 GeV/c calculated on the basis of classical hadr odynamics for extended nucleons. This theory, which corresponds to nuc leons of finite size interacting with massive neutral scalar and vecto r meson fields, is the classical analogue of the quantum hadrodynamics of Serot and Walecka but without the assumptions of the mean-field ap proximation and of point nucleons. The theory is manifestly Lorentz-co variant and automatically includes space-time nonlocality and retardat ion, nonequilibrium phenomena, interactions among all nucleons and par ticle production when used for applications such as relativistic heavy -ion collisions. We briefly review the history of classical meson-fiel d theory and present our classical relativistic equations of motion, w hich are solved to yield such physically observable quantities as scat tering angle, transverse momentum, radiated energy and rapidity. We fi nd that the theory provides a physically reasonable description of gro ss features associated with the soft reactions that dominate nucleon-n ucleon collisions. The equations of motion are practical to solve nume rically for relativistic heavy-ion collisions.