Two years ago, at the 12th Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics held here in Snowbird, the authors presented WA80 limits on direct photon production in 200-GeV 32S + Au collisions. It was found that the results were consistent (within 1[sigma]) with the absence of an excess of photons over those that can be accounted for by the two-photon decay branches of [pi]° and [eta] mesons and by the small photon contributions from other radiative decays. They are in the process of finalizing the direct-photon production results from collisions of lead nuclei at 158 GeV/nucleon. The author briefly discusses the status of the analysis and gives some preliminary results at the end of this talk. However, most of this presentation is concerned with a very different aspect of the photon measurements: distributions of neutral pions. In contrast to direct photons which probe initial collision conditions, hadrons, such as neutral pions, interact strongly and decouple late in the reaction evolution and, thus, provide information concerning the system at freeze out. Transverse momentum spectra at low and intermediate p{sub T} relate to thermodynamic and hydrodynamic descriptions of the hot, dense systems. In addition, the high-p{sub T} region reflects the hard-scattering regime and may help one understand initial-state particle production by forming a bridge to proton-proton and proton-nucleus results. It follows that it is essential that the [pi]° measurements cover a large p{sub T} range.

These are the results of a measurement of inclusive production at high transverse momentum (P perpendicular to) of neutral pions (.pi./sup 0/) from protons by beams of proton (p), kaon (K), pion (.pi.), and antiproton (antiproton) particles. The experiment used the Fermilab M2 beam line at momenta of 100, 200 and 300 GeV/c striking a liquid hydrogen target. The data include center of mass (cm) production angles of the .pi./sup 0/ between 2/sup 0/ and 115/sup 0/ for P perpendicular to greater than 1 GeV/c. A pair of differential Cherenkov counters distinguished the types of beam particles. The photon (.gamma.) detector of a lead and scintillator sandwich measured both photons from the .pi./sup 0/ .-->. 2.gamma. decay and enabled a reconstruction of the .pi./sup 0/ kinematics. The measurements show several remarkable features distinguishing the production rates for these different beams, including a forward peak in the cm for .pi.p collisions and much less .pi./sup 0/ production at high P perpendicular to in pp than in .pi.p or Kp collisions. A simple parametrization accurately represents the data over most of its range, showing approximate scaling in the radial variable x/sub R/ = 2P/.sqrt.s (in the cm). Several parton models are compared with the data. A heuristic picture in terms of the quark constituents of the interacting hadrons accounts for many features of the data in an intuitive way. 62 references.