A general and linear relationship is found between the fireball mass $M^{*}$ and the multiplicity $〈n〉$ of mesons from $\mathrm{pp}$ collisions and $\overline{p}p$ annihilations, the characteristics of $M^{*}$ being determined by the scaling parameter used to modify the Bose-Einstein distribution. In the scaling limit, this relationship is identical with the well known power law $〈n〉\propto E^{\frac{1}{2}}$ A remark is made on its extension to asymmetric fireballs such as pion-nucleon collisions.

• Received 12 August 1977

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.17.927