  Here we give the results of our study of features of dense groups, or spikes,
of particles produced in Mg-Mg and C-Cu collisions at, respectively, 4.3 and
4.5 GeV/c/nucleon aimed to search for a coherent, Cerenkov-like, mechanism of
hadroproduction. We investigate the distributions of spike centers and, for
Mg-Mg interactions, the energy spectra of negatively charged particles in
spikes. The spike-center distributions are obtained to exhibit the structure
expected from coherent gluon-jet emission dynamics. This structure is similar
in both cases considered, namely for all charged and negatively charged
particles, and is also similar to that observed recently for
all-charged-particle spikes in hadronic interactions. The energy distribution
within spikes is found to have a significant peak over the inclusive
background, while the inclusive spectrum shows exponential decrease with two
characteristic values of average kinetic energy. The value of the peak energy
and its width are in a good agreement with those expected for pions produced in
a nuclear medium in the framework of the Cerenkov quantum approach. The peak
energy obtained is consistent with the value of the cross-section maximum
observed in coincidence nucleon-nucleus interaction experiments.
