Inclusive spectra of direct pions and the quark-gluon string model

Contributions from decays of resonances to the inclusive spectra of pi mesons are analyzed in the quark-gluon string model. A method for extracting the spectra of direct pions is proposed. It is shown that contributions from decay particles are important for x < 0.3. At large x, the assumption that all pions directly produced is justified to high accuracy. It is revealed that the contribution of three-body decays substantially improves model predictions for neutral-pion cross sections.