Production of [phi] Mesons on Nuclear Targets in the Quark--Gluon String Model

Experimental data on the production of [phi] mesons in proton--nucleus and nucleus--nucleus collisions are considered. These data show unusually small shadowing corrections to the inclusive density for [phi]-meson production in the midrapidity region. It is found that the results of calculations based on the quark--gluon string model are in qualitative agreement with experimental data on the density of produced y mesons as a function of both the initial energy ranging from the Collaboration NA49 energy to the LHC high energies and the target atomic number A.