The soft and the hard pomerons: elastic scattering and unitarisation

TL;DR

This paper discusses the roles of soft and hard pomerons in elastic scattering, suggesting the hard pomeron's presence at moderate energies could imply higher total cross sections at the LHC than previously predicted.

Contribution

It introduces the significance of the hard pomeron component in elastic scattering and its potential impact on LHC cross section predictions.

Findings

Hard pomeron likely present at moderate energies.

Total cross section at LHC may be larger than expected.

Implications for modeling high-energy scattering processes.

Abstract

The hard pomeron component needed to reproduce small-x data seems to be present in elastic scattering at moderate energy. If this is the case, it is likely that the total cross section at the LHC will be appreciably larger than previously expected.